


as the crooked smiles fade

by asexualizing (Specialcookies)



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: (many missing scenes), Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coda, Debbie and Lou's past, Drugs, F/F, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Miscommunication, Missing Scene, Pre-Canon, emotional slow-burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-06-27 03:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Specialcookies/pseuds/asexualizing
Summary: There is absolutely nothing you can do when a man offers the love of your life a dream. You can tell her not to go, sure -- but this is a world of crime, and that’s what people do here; they go until they find something to achieve, and then they go again; that is how you had her to begin with. You’ve said so yourself: one day, one of us is going to break the other’s heart. So let’s decide now. And she said: why decide? And you could hear the end already.Debbie and Lou have a past, chock-full of all sorts of events. They also have the right here, right now, where they need to deal with having a past. They also have a future, but they're not sure where it leads them, and how they are going to spend it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty. Hi. I wasn't planning on dividing this into chapters nor posting anything before it is completely finished but plans change, you know? I started writing this fic the first day I watched Oceans 8 for the first time, and it grew into something so big and important to me that basically contains all my thoughts and feelings about Lou and Debbie in one fragile space. I don't do meta but I do this. Any sort of appriciation you'd show if you like this would high-key make me cry probably 'cause i am actually pretty proud of what i have here and that doesn't happen often. i love Debbie and Lou and i love putting all the effort and thought which i am putting into this fic and i am excited to start sharing this with y'all. enough rambling.
> 
> A few notes:
> 
> 1\. Any cons written about in this fic are either a) the con from the movie, or b) inspired by cons that happened in the world and i found on the internet.
> 
> 2\. to the person who brought the absolute truth of Fleetwood Mac being important to Lou and Debbie into the fandom, who i am not naming because i am not entirely certain who was the first: thank you.
> 
> 3\. as to a posting schedule, there isn't one, but i'll do my best to not keep you waiting for too long.
> 
> 4\. i do have to thank [hold-onto-your-hearts](http://hold-onto-your-hearts.tumblr.com/) for reading some of this and talking to me about this and generally being a good egg
> 
> 5\. the title of the fic is taken from The Kids Aren't Alright by Fall Out Boy
> 
> 6\. unrelated but to anybody who sent me prompts i am working on them they are just turning longer than ficlets so uhhhh sorry!!!!!!
> 
> hope you enjoy <3

There is absolutely nothing you can do when a man offers the love of your life a dream. You can tell her not to go, sure—but this is a world of crime, and that’s what people do here; they go until they find something to achieve, and then they go again; that is how you had her to begin with. You’ve said so yourself: _one day, one of us is going to break the other’s heart. So, let’s decide now._ And she said: _why decide?_ And you could hear the end already.

You’ve fucked and shared food off each other’s plates and never said another thing about it.

There is absolutely nothing you can do when the dream that was offered crumbles around her—inevitable—the man turns out to be a jerk—predictable—and the cops are simply glad to have an Ocean in their hands— _tiresome_. You can tell her something...sentimental, sure—[LW2] but this is a world of temporality, and this is how it goes: for years she’ll plan ahead; for years you’ll pretend that you don’t miss her.

You have learned many life lessons such as these, as one does when in the business of conning life. You have learned that people crave lies to believe in, as long as they are prettier than reality; that confidence is not something you can fake, but something you must constantly live by; that insecurities are most useful when made up. But perhaps the most important lesson you’ve learned is that love has no place in a job, and that she is always running a job. That’s what she’s best at. That’s what you’re best at, as well, and maybe that is why you’ve always gotten along so well -- there was always something keeping you apart.

**December, 2003**

A woman is following her around, and she’s not making a good job out of it. Debbie watches her from the corner of her eye as she makes her way around the casino in paths that would lose a less experienced stalker—which she seems to be, if how quickly Debbie noticed her was anything to go by—but the woman is insistent, doesn’t disappear even for a second, doesn’t take her eyes off of Debbie even as she gracefully avoids bumping into people, which makes Debbie conclude that she wants to be seen.

She is beautiful, there’s no doubting that—bright blonde, wavy hair that barely reaches her shoulders, jawline so refined that not any woman could pull it off, a devilish glint to her eyes, and a constant, inviting upward curl to the corner of her mouth. She’s wearing leopard high-heels and a matching jacket, a camel-colored plain button-up underneath it with a slim, washed-out white neck-tie and leather pants. Her jewels are a mess of clinking sounds that follow Debbie as well. It’s eclectic, and more importantly, it’s visible, but she makes it _work_. Debbie wouldn’t mind the attention if the woman wasn’t so obviously after something.

So, she leads her up to the highest balcony in the place, where the rest of the people around them wouldn’t dare go in the kind of weather they’ve been having. She leans on the rail, watching Las Vegas coruscating with lights underneath her as the music thumps, muffled, in low bass notes, and waits.

It’s two minutes or so before the woman joins her, though Debbie could hear her standing just outside seconds after Debbie entered.

“The most beautiful city on earth,” the woman says with a heavy Australian accent, coming to stand besides Debbie. Her voice is leveled, her breath as well; teeth not clicking in the cold—a professional.

“There’s nothing like it,” Debbie agrees.

“I used to come up here as a kid.” Her voice drops, wistful—Debbie’s not sure if she’s faking it. “My family _loved_ this hotel.” She cracks her neck, rolls her shoulders, then turns her head to look at Debbie’s profile. “Yours, too, no? Your brother, at least.”

At the mention of Danny, Debbie turns to face her, careful not to give anything away. The woman’s smiling, toothy and as devilish as the glint in her eyes.

Debbie scans her up and down. Her legs are crossed at the ankles, she’s leaning casually on her elbow. She’s definitely not intimidated right now, but she isn’t trying to intimidate, either. She’s having a conversation.

So Debbie indulges her.

“He’s fond of it, that’s sure enough.”

“And you?”

“Mark me down as impressed.”

The woman tilts her head, considers Debbie. She won’t find a single thing, whatever she is looking for. The problem is, Debbie can’t find a single thing either and she doesn’t even know what she’s looking for. _Come on_ , she thinks, _everybody’s got a tell._

“Weren’t you all banned?”

“Why? Are you writing a story?”

“Oh, God no,” the woman scowls. “Journalists? Awful people. Always want to know the truth.”

“Or they are simply bad at lying.”

The woman laughs, throaty and real—or she’s even better than Debbie thought. “I like you,” she says, pointing a finger at Debbie.

Debbie almost gives in to the creeping smile that is threatening to throw her off. The least she can do is keep her words balanced. “That’s evident enough.”

The woman sighs longingly. “So, Debbie Ocean—“

_Alright, that’s my mark._

“Who are you?” Debbie cuts her off, puts every fiber of her stern being into the question. But that doesn’t have the desired effect. The woman simply winks at her.

“Call me Lou,” she says.

Debbie doesn’t go along with it. “And what do you want?”

“Exactly what you want.”

“Which is?”

“To have _fun_.”

She takes a step into Debbie’s personal space, looks into her eyes, manages, somehow, even though she’s just a bit shorter, to make it seem like she’s looking _down_. Debbie doesn’t step back. She steels herself, lets her hair fall to her right shoulder as she returns the same sort of expression.

“What sort of fun?”

“The lucrative kind,” the woman leans forward, puts her mouth near Debbie’s ear. “I have an offer for you.”

Debbie understands this game, at least. Glancing sideways, she can see some security personnel behind the glass wall, wondering what two crazy women might be doing on the balcony when it’s the coldest December Las Vegas has seen in recent years.

She runs her fingers tentatively over the woman’s arm. “Why should I trust you?”

“I’ve got two or three reasons…” the woman runs her hand up Debbie’s thigh to the pocket of her trousers. Debbie raises an eyebrow, puts her own hand in the pocket where—

Where three casino chips have found themselves. She feels them. Three hundred dollars.

Debbie brings her lips to the woman’s cheek. “Not enough,” she murmurs.

The woman is anything but discouraged. “Here’s the deal,” she brings a hand to Debbie’s chin, turns her head and, with a single look of confirmation, brushes their lips together. “Right now,” she pecks a kiss, rubs their noses, “I’ve got five people playing against very bad odds.”

“And losing, I assume.”

“Oh, they are.”

Another peck. Debbie has the natural urge to close her eyes, but she’s done this often enough to know better.

“That’s the whole point,” the woman goes on. Debbie twirls a strand of platinum blonde hair between her fingers.

“You’re getting closer,” she admits.

“Good.” With another peck to Debbie’s lips, the woman brings her hand to Debbie’s pocket, takes out one of the chips and lifts it to Debbie’s eyes. “That’s homemade.”

Debbie takes it from her, examines it closely. She can’t see anything wrong with it, but then, what would be the point of an easily detectable fake chip. Wrapping her palm around Debbie’s, the woman takes the chip to put it back in her own pocket.

“Are your people playing with these chips?” Debbie asks, trusting her gut feeling about this. (Danny would give her a good rundown for that, but Danny’s busy getting his life with Tess back together, and Debbie doesn’t care what he has to say about her own life.)

The woman smiles. “You’re listening.”

Debbie keeps a sensible façade as she rests a hand on the woman’s (Lou? Might as well call her Lou at this point) chest-bone, but this _is_ getting to her. “What’s the plan?”

Lou checks her watch, fixes Debbie’s hair behind her ear. “In about an hour and a half, three of my people are going to try and cash in some of these chips. They won’t have many on them, they’ve been losing. These chips are not as sophisticated enough to fool a thorough examination, but they don’t need to be. So, my people have these homemade chips on them, and some real ones from the tables, and they try to exchange everything for their money. First, they are going to be suspected of fraud, but once the casino checks the cameras and sees how badly they’ve been playing, and how little money they are trying to cash in, they will have to turn to a much bigger problem: their casino is most certainly filled with fake chips, which people are losing, and winning, and losing again, and winning some more. People are going to want their money. Their honestly won money. Which did not come from the casino.”

Debbie does close her eyes now, her hand climbing up to Lou’s neck, her thumb on her jawline. She breathes in. _Oh, this is good._

“They’ll need to do a sweep, they’ll need to clean the place… But they can’t raise any alarm,” she drawls.

“Hmm…” Lou agrees.

“What do they do?”

“They have to find the source. More and more people will be coming to them, more and more fake chips on their hands…”

“And who’s the source?”

“Oh, some manager who has been stealing from the dealers’ winnings…”

“Workable. So eventually, they fix the problem,” she repeats, signaling for Lou to go on.

Lou brings Debbie’s hand to her lips, kisses it. “But first of all, they panic.”

This moment, right now, she lets the smile creep onto her face. “Which is where you come in.”

Lou hums again. “See, I’ve been working on this for quite some time now. I’ve had the perfect homemade chips, ready to be used whenever I’d like. Ones that it will take them months to realize did not come from their casino. My only problem was: no matter how long it takes them, no matter how far I get by then, they do, eventually, figure out someone fooled them, and they do, eventually, chase _me_ down.”

Debbie breathes in the freezing night air, her lungs protesting against the bite, but her body is warmed up by Lou’s proximity, her mind wide open like the Nevada desert. She listens, intent, as Lou drawls on, threading her fingers into Debbie’s hair, her thumb brushing Debbie’s cheekbone. It’s temptation, but it’s also instigation—pushing at Debbie’s natural urge to _act_.

“So, I’ve been planning a distraction, which I have just described to you. While they panic, chase down the abomination that I put in your pocket, I cash in my perfect, undetectable, absolute magnificent craftwork of genius homemade chips. So do the other two of my people. By the time we are all out of here, and they have locked down on the source, they will think they’ve fixed the problem. We’ll be out of Vegas and forgotten, by the time their leads will get them to nowhere near us.” Brushing her lips to Debbie’s again, Lou murmurs: “Simple.”

Debbie sighs, something too ravenous for her own liking, but she cannot help herself. “Risky.”

“Not very, but enough.”

She opens her eyes, looks into the fire in Lou’s. She was right when she said Debbie is looking for fun. She was right too many times along this conversation, but Debbie doesn’t particularly care, with what she’s got on her hands. “What do you need me for?”

“Might be weird to get lucky on my own.”

“Weirder to have me with you.”

“And after we’re done, we can go to your room,” she grabs Debbie’s waist, turns her to look over the city again and points at Debbie’s hotel. “Right there.”

Debbie laughs, exhilarated. “You need a room.”

Lou shrugs. Then, she wraps both arms around Debbie and hugs her, leans her head on her shoulder. “Much nicer to have a partner in this city.”

“Have you been hunting me down?”

“Chance meeting. I admire your work, though.” Lou brushes Debbie’s hair aside, brings her lips to Debbie’s ear again. “So, what do you say?”

“How much are we talking about?”

“For us? Fifty thousand.”

“For me.”

“Do the math, then.”

Debbie turns her head over her shoulder, quirks an eyebrow. _Equal share for a room?_ Lou simply grins at her. 

She presses a wet kiss to Lou’s mouth. She’s not even sure people are still looking, but she’s too caught up, as it is. “What if I walk?”

Lou turns Debbie to face her, crowds her with two hands on the rail on each side of her. “What fun is that?”

Pushing her back, Debbie flashes Lou a grin. She really wasn’t about to say no, had decided five minutes ago. And compliments do go a long way with her.

Lou spreads her arms, a final question with a final answer.

“Let’s go,” Debbie says, and leads the way.

**March, 2018**

The gravel road is bumpier than she remembered. Her Toyota rumbles and jumps, and Lou has to keep two hands on the steering wheel.

Five years, eight months, twelve days. Lou has been counting with a calendar of her own: the indentations her fingernails left on her palms; the number of times she had bitten her lip hard enough to draw blood just so she wouldn’t say Debbie’s name while a poor girl ate her out; and lately, visits to this exact cemetery, where, standing next to the Oceans mausoleum, she would see Debbie in her peripheral, imagining she conned her way out of prison without telling her.

She would also try to speak to Danny, but that failed every time; she’d only met him a handful of times, but every time she did, she saw Debbie in a different light—as a little sister, looking for comfort, looking for support. Only barely, admittedly, but it was there nonetheless: a vulnerability which Lou saw in her nowhere else. She was almost too sorry that Debbie had to be inside when the news got out, but then none of them were really sure that it’s the whole truth they’re hearing. 

Where Debbie had little red Xs and too much time to think, Lou had a life to lead and too much time to live it. If she’s wondering what Debbie’s gonna do when she gets in the car it’s only because she’s wondering what Debbie’s gonna do out of prison. Lou knows her too well—if she’s not telling her the whole story it’s because she wants to see her face when she hears it. And if she’s gonna be mad that Lou didn’t do what she asked her to do, it’s only because she likes to be dramatic.

Lou brings the car to a stop. Her windows need cleaning and the rain doesn’t make it any better, but she can still catch Debbie and Reuben talking. _Men_ , she thinks, huffing. They always try to stop Debbie, and Debbie always tries to push further thanks to that. Lou doesn’t mind taking the burn of it when that happens; she prefers it that way rather than—well, it doesn’t matter.

She honks.

Is she nervous? Her palms are dry, her jaw is relaxed, her heart is beating steadily—but the normal physical reactions she’s used to have been long lost to years of being suppressed. Debbie turns to see her waiting, lingers for just a tad too long before turning back to say her goodbyes to Reuben. As Debbie makes her way towards the car under a big, black, dramatic umbrella, Lou shakes her head, smiles, wishes her body would let go so she could feel butterflies in her stomach, or whatever it is one might feel in such a moment.

Then Debbie opens the door to the car, and Lou’s mind goes blissfully blank for the very first time in two decades.

**December, 2003**

“Oh, my God,” Debbie pants. Her hands are tangled in the sheets, which she’s been ripping off the bed for the past twenty minutes; her legs are spread wide, and Lou’s head between her thighs is quite the sight.

Lou laughs, pleased. She presses a hot kiss to Debbie before coming up for air, crawling all the way to face Debbie. Her lips are bright red, puffed, wet; her chin is glistening. She is breathing laboriously, chest rising and falling and rising and falling. With one sticky hand to Debbie’s neck, she asks, “How am I doing?”

“Come here,” Debbie beckons. Lou lowers her head just enough for Debbie to stretch her neck and plant a quick kiss to her lips, before she lets it fall back on the pillow and beckons again. “Closer.”

Lou does, just a little bit, and Debbie does it again, “Closer.” Until finally, she pulls Lou in, licks into her mouth and moans a little bit, shifts her hips to rub herself on Lou’s thigh.

They came back from the casino… God, hours ago. Carrying fifty thousand dollars, they slipped into Debbie’s room, and Lou _looked_ at her and bit her lip and Debbie _had_ to pull her by the neck-tie, money falling from their pockets as they stumbled to the bed.

“Good?” Lou asked, and Debbie hummed, nodded, started to undress her. Lou laughed, light, and pushed her on her back. Debbie, leaning on her elbows, watching as Lou got rid of all her jewelry, asked, “Why did you trust me?” and Lou said, “Because I did.” Debbie didn’t want to push and lose, so that was that.

It was so very easy—this whole partner deal with Lou; so very easy to banter with Lou and touch Lou in ways that _imply_ and pretend they have known each other forever. “Honey” and “baby” slipped effortlessly out of their mouths as they exchanged knowing glances, and Debbie felt alive, felt like there is something new and shiny she was touching and it was out of reach enough to be exciting.

Lou’s like three golden beans that grow a tree of never-ending… whatever the fuck that was. Some never-ending resource, she is. Bringing Debbie in to an exhilarating con, making it _work_ , making _them_ work together, making Debbie feel something she hasn’t in ages—working on her own, scraping money together, searching for an unnamed destiny her family had promised her. Some never-ending fuel. Debbie wants her, and Debbie can have her, so she does.

It wasn’t only the con that got her worked up enough to want to fuck Lou.

Lou sighs into their kiss, deep and heavy, and shifts to Debbie’s side. She buries her head in the crook of Debbie’s neck and nips at her skin. “When I said I needed a room, you know I didn’t…” she drifts off, her hand sliding to Debbie’s belly, where she circles a finger around her belly-button.

“I know,” Debbie croaks, hand sliding into Lou’s hair as the nipping turns to kissing and licking and, “Oh, God, Jesus,” Debbie moans and squirms, tries to get a better angle on Lou’s thigh. “I’m having a spectacular time, though.” Lou sucks gently at her pulse point. “A spectacular night.” Licks behind her ear. “With some spectacular orgasms.” Dips her tongue inside as her thumb runs over Debbie’s nipple and Debbie arches her back and makes a decision, flips them over, pinning Lou’s hands above her head, kissing her as deep as she can.

“Don’t you want to finish?” Lou asks, breathless, when Debbie lets her. Her hair is framing her face, spread on the pillow, sweat-drenched. She licks her lips, closes her eyes. Debbie lets her hands go, and she brings them to Debbie’s waist, running them up and down her sides.

“I can finish while finishing you off.”

“You do live up to your reputation.”

Debbie laughs, something that is bubbling straight out of her chest. She kisses Lou’s jawline. “Don’t know what your reputation is, but I think you exceed it,” she murmurs.

“Australians. We always get left in the shadows.”

Debbie lies down, flush to Lou’s body. She pushes hair off her forehead, and Lou runs her toes over Debbie’s sole, tickling just enough to be pleasant.

“Sixty-nine?” Lou asks. Debbie pinches her left side, making her jump and honest-to-God giggle, _jesus_ , kisses the smile off her lips before sliding down her body. “I was serious,” Lou clarifies while spreading her legs, accommodating Debbie.

Debbie looks up at her, shaking her head a little in amazement, her lips stretching wide. “Shut up.”

“Alright,” Lou sighs. “But I’m not done with you.”

**March, 2018**

It should be harder. Too many years since they’ve seen each other, too many years since they’ve managed to talk without fighting. Lou did send letters, under faux names, and Debbie never replied; Lou didn’t expect her too—she didn’t do it for the sake of conversation, she just wanted to send Debbie a letter. Too many years for things to change, for _them_ to change, for the world do change—and it did, in so many ways. Ground shaking, roaming, plates moving inch by inch until Lou was standing in a completely different place, and Debbie—she doesn’t know. Debbie never replied.

So, it should be harder, but why would it be? Debbie was always too easy to swallow down, for her. That always scared her, the knowledge that whatever they are and wherever they are, it will be Debbie falling into step by her side and Lou reaching out, blind, to find her. You’re not supposed to be that familiar with another person, it makes no sense.

They drive to the loft and slide easily into conversation, not skipping a beat to examine how the years have come and gone upon the other. Funny thing about time—it doesn’t only change how things are now, it makes what already happened seem different. Water under the bridge. There’s no need to dwell.

Debbie’s trying to rope her in in the best way possible—by not telling her _what the fuck she’s got in mind._ And it’s working like magic. She missed this game. Debbie, it seems, missed it as well.

“Don’t you wanna do things you are interested in?” Debbie asks as if fifteen years didn’t already prove Lou’s answer. Then again, she’s probably here _because_ fifteen years has proven Lou’s answer.

“I’m interested in brain surgery,” Lou replies, because old habits die hard, because she is, because while Debbie likes to keep her on the edge, she likes to keep Debbie wanting.

“Well that’s not gonna happen.”

Lou considers joking about her steady, nimble hands, but opts for emotionally guilt-tripping Debbie instead. Which works to an extent.

“Look, if you don’t want to tell me…”

Debbie tells her. It’s jewels, locked in a safe fifteen feet underground. Lou can almost taste the excitement hanging in the air, the anticipation for something big—which is what she’s used to tasting with Debbie by her side. Is sure that if she kisses Debbie right now she will taste it on her lips as well.

But she doesn’t. Debbie stops midway through talking about the heist as they go up to Lou’s loft, smiles slyly at Lou when Lou quirks up a questioning eyebrow and says, “I don’t want to ruin the reveal,” and Lou rolls her eyes— _dramatic_ —and lets her into her loft. She simply knows Lou all too well—knows how to keep her inside just enough for her to get too deep until the right moment comes, and she cannot turn around no matter what Debbie’s plan is. She wonders, briefly, if Debbie’s nervous about the things she’s been planning for so long. Wonders if it’ll live up to expectations. Oceans, Lou knows, have a lot of those. But Deborah Ocean is not the anxious type, she’s the type who runs ahead with whatever she’s got in mind and burns everything in her way if needed. If she kissed Debbie right now she knows she’d taste that as well.

_Maybe prison changed that in her_ , Lou thinks, and then pushes the thought back down.

She doesn’t kiss Debbie. There is tension in the few moments of silence that hang between them, in their eyes locking with no words that can explain the look, and Lou cannot decipher what that means for them. Easiness makes room for heaviness in those moments, and Lou had only dealt with that once before, and that made Debbie run away.

Five years, eight months, and twelve days go a long way in making you doubt your place in someone’s life. No matter that you kept a room for them all that time, kept their stuff, kept their place in this world like a weirdly-shaped children’s toy waiting to be fitted with its destined shape.

She lets Debbie settle in, and makes herself coffee, putting Debbie’s favorite brand of tea on the counter for her. They can talk about it later.

**December, 2003**

“So where are you off to?” Debbie asks, toothbrush hanging from her mouth, her body covered by a soft, white robe. Lou’s still naked, sprawled atop the mess of covers and pillows on the bed, just a towel around her hair.

She looks at Debbie, lopsided. “No idea.”

Lou’s as charming after a night of sex and no sleep as she is while stealing money from a casino, and Debbie brushes her teeth for a little too long because she can’t stop looking at her. If Lou notices, she doesn’t do anything about it, simply lies on the bed and runs her hands over the sheets.

“No other big plans?” She has no idea where Lou came from, or what Lou’s lifestyle is like (if it’s anything like Debbie’s, then she probably really does have no idea), but she knows she wants a little more of Lou. Knows she’s not willing to go in separate ways just yet. She wants a little bit more of the fun. And she knows how to get that.

“Mmhmm…” Lou rolls to her stomach, the towel falling off her head. She leans her chin on a single palm and folds two legs up. “Why?”

Debbie spits toothpaste into the sink, rinses her mouth. She sits down on one of the big, leather-covered chairs facing the bed, crosses her legs. She takes her time. It seems to be agitating Lou in the best way possible as she raises an eyebrow. If Debbie learned anything about this girl last night, it’s that she likes being teased to completion.

“I thought of something,” Debbie finally says, allowing just a hint of a smile to roll over her face.

“When?” Lou asks, not skeptical but intrigued, picks the towel up and runs it over her hair before throwing it to the floor. Just an hour ago it was barely sunrise, and Debbie was lazily licking into Lou’s mouth while Lou was drawing circles on her hip bone. But now, Lou is looking as sharp and awake as Debbie feels.

“Third… No, fourth orgasm.”

Lou laughs, deep and throaty, and to Debbie’s satisfaction, rolls herself off the bed and comes to sit in Debbie’s lap. Thumb to Debbie’s lower lip, she murmurs, “You’re something special.”

Debbie kisses it and hums.

“Another casino scam?” Lou brings her mouth to Debbie’s, half brushing their lips together, half kissing her light and dry.

Debbie shuts her eyes and lets her. “No.”

“Insurance fraud?”

“Mm… No.”

“You’re going big. You’re gonna rob a bank.”

Debbie opens her eyes, clears Lou’s hair from her face and smiles. “Let’s go have breakfast.”

“And then you’ll blow my mind?”

“Maybe.”

Lou sighs, a hand against Debbie’s chest bone. “You’re too fucking sexy when you’re teasing.”

Debbie can’t help but laugh. “You’re too fucking sexy when you’re being teased.”

“Jesus, alright,” Lou gives in with a wet press of her lips to Debbie’s jawline. “Let’s go have breakfast.”

**March, 2018**

Too much time with Debbie locked up in her room, and Lou loses it and goes to check on her club, just so she’ll have something on her hands. The girls are keeping it up well tonight, three fingers from the top with no Judge Judy to distract them (but plenty of chatter; not that Lou minds, but she’d rather not hear it). She’s got nothing to do in her office—all the orders for the upcoming weeks signed and delivered, all the paychecks dealt with, all the DJ’s slotted into their dates—and nothing to do on the dance floor (God bless today’s youth, but sometimes their dance moves are abhorrent), so Lou finds herself leaning on the bar, looking around absentmindedly.

She’s shaken from watching a couple of girls practically grinding on each other by Ruby’s voice, deep and clear above the music. “Hey, boss,” she says, slings her towel over her shoulder and leans on the bar next to Lou.

“How’s it going?” Lou asks, doesn’t take her eyes off the few men who are close enough to potentially bother the girls on the floor.

“Smooth sailing,” Ruby answers proudly. She’s a good kid, just trying to pay her way through college, doesn’t want any trouble but doesn’t mind a bit of dirty work, and she likes that Lou trusts her to keep an eye when she’s not there, goes to great lengths in making sure nobody is harmed on her watch. Lou likes the nightlife, but she also hates most of the people who take part in it. Ruby kickboxes, and it shows—Lou had already seen her take a few people down when it was needed; she really doesn’t need to worry about what’s going on in her club when Ruby’s there—not that it’s ever stopped Lou from making sure everything’s alright herself.

“Good,” Lou finally turns to face the girl. Ruby smiles at her.

“Want a drink?” she asks in that funny tone of hers that means she’s still hoping one day Lou will say yes.

Lou laughs a little, shakes her head. This is their usual ritual. She always gives the same answer, “I’m driving.”

“You’re always driving.”

“And yet,” Lou clicks her tongue, “you keep on asking.” She clears her fringe out of her eyes, claps Ruby’s shoulder. It’s time to go, before Ruby sees fit to ask something else. “Take care, yeah?”

Ruby gives her a mock salute, then goes back to her job. Lou’s always careful to not stay for too long around her place, around her people—she’s not even sure they will ever take the opportunity to delve into her personal life, but it’s best to not even offer them that. This is business, this is _her_ business—everything else gotta stay out of it.

Does she _want_ a drink? God, Yes. She’s just not gonna break _now_ , just because Debbie’s back. If she didn’t break while Debbie was gone, there’s really no reason to.

The trick is always having an excuse on hand. Driving, that’s hers.

Lou picks up her helmet from the office, then takes the back exit towards her parking spot. Her cell-phone chirps as she walks, a message from Debbie: _picking up chinese. what do u want?_

_Something good_ , she texts back, knowing Debbie will pretend to be annoyed but in all honesty, she just likes choosing what they both eat, because she likes sharing.

Lou revs the motor up and slides smoothly into New York City’s streets without waiting for Debbie’s reply.

**December, 2003**

They sit by a window looking down at the empty pool, the sun now shining brightly and painting rainbows on the white tablecloth and the omelets, pancakes, fruits and salads they have spread on it. Debbie sips her Mimosa, staring at the stacked, empty pool chairs. At the age of ten, when they would visit Vegas as a family, and Debbie was only half-aware of what her father was doing here, she would make a beeline towards the water as Danny chased her, creating a big splash as she jumped in before he could reach her, and Danny, who at that age was afraid of drowning, pouted at her from the edge as she laughed. He would always lose at Tag. Debbie was way too competitive for him, which was why when her father brought her into the family business Danny was reluctant to help, until he grew old enough to stop being bitter.

Lou clears her throat. “So…” Debbie turns to her. She’s chewing gum, sitting in last night’s clothes, her hair mussed up from the towel, her ring-clad fingers tapping on the tabletop. She hadn’t touched a bite of the food, nor the Mimosa that Debbie got for them both.

Debbie lays down her glass and picks a fork up, putting a piece of strawberry in her mouth and chewing it slowly. “You gonna eat?” she asks after swallowing the fruit down, taking another sip of her Mimosa. Lou rolls her eyes and sticks her gum on the saucer of her coffee cup.

She takes a single bite from the mushrooms omelet and gestures with her head: _happy now?_

Debbie picks up a knife as well and starts digging into the stack of pancakes. “It’s not spectacularly big, but,” she begins. Lou leans forward, picking up her coffee and nestling it between two palms. “Weddings,” she finishes cryptically, and pushes enough food into her mouth to be occupied for at least a minute.

Lou’s unfazed. “So early on, honey?” she speaks over the rim of her cup.

“What happens in Vegas,” Debbie can’t help but reply, her mouth still full.

Lou shakes her head. “Manners,” she gulps down coffee.

Debbie swallows, “that never came up in my family.”

“Yeah, Rusty did mention.”

It’s a good thing Debbie didn’t pick up any more food, and that Lou spoke before Debbie could drink anything, because her instant response is to start coughing like crazy. She taps her mouth with a napkin and levels out her breath as Lou looks at her, satisfied as a cat.

“You could have lead with that,” Debbie deadpans, finally, after a long stretch of silence wherein Lou refused to say another word, simply contesting Debbie to see who blinks first.

“And never know if you took me for me or for being affiliated with Rusty? No.” Lou winks at her, pops some fruit into her mouth. Debbie drowns the itching in her throat with more of the Mimosa.

It’s not uncommon for people to know too much about her family, but if Lou knows Rusty, it’s more than legends that she had heard. It paints last night in a completely different light, one that Debbie’s not sure she’s entirely comfortable with.

“Did he tell you I was here?” she questions, doubtful now of the truths Lou told her.

Lou shakes her head, rips a piece of bread with her fingers. “I told you,” she puts it in her mouth, “Chance meeting.”

“How do you know him?”

“Couple of months after I moved to the U.S, I beat him at poker.” Lou washes the bread down with more coffee, wipes her fingers on a napkin, then looks Debbie in the eye, the devilish glint making a reappearance. “You know how he gets,” she says, and flips her hair in a dramatic gesture meant to imitate Rusty’s reaction to losing at poker.

Debbie finds herself relaxing at that. She does know how he gets. The first time she beat him, Danny almost peed his pants laughing. The casual way in which Lou talks about Rusty’s over-reactions makes Debbie feel awfully familiar with her, which is an entirely different kind of uncomfortable, the kind of uncomfortable that comes with feeling _close_ to someone.

"So, what did he tell you about me?" Debbie asks carefully, slowly, not entirely certain that she wants to know but certain that she needs to.

"Hm..." Lou chews a bite of pancakes. "Charming, smart, quick-tongued, an Ocean. Which, to be frank, took me a while to understand, but a year in the business and the meaning became pretty clear."

"And what did you figure out it means?"

"Insane."

Debbie blinks at her a few times before she bursts out laughing. Lou leans back in her chair, crosses her legs. She sips her coffee and doesn't take her eyes off Debbie, smiling. "You're gonna tell me what the deal is with your weddings idea?" she eventually asks, after she let Debbie calm down.

"I shouldn't, with you knowing Rusty and all," Debbie teases.

Lou seems to take the statement way too seriously. "We fell out of touch a few years back. You can tell me anything you want, honey. I won't snitch."

Debbie sucks on a slice of orange. "Just one more question."

"Hm?"

"What did he say about Danny?"

"That if you can stand him, he'll take you places you've never dreamt of going to."

There's something fond in the way Lou's staring at her now. Debbie assumes she's got the usual expression that thinking about Danny manifests. "It's true," she finds herself saying. Lou pops her gum. "Ever met him?"

"Didn't get the chance, no. He went to jail, then me and Rusty parted ways. Good brother, I sense?"

"If you can stand him."

Now it's Lou's turn to laugh. She runs her hand through her hair, shifts a bit in her chair until she's slouching more than sitting. "I'm an only child," Lou says out of nowhere, a piece of information she's exchanging with Debbie just to not have the upper hand. "Left home at fifteen." She's still looking straight at Debbie, undeterred. Debbie has enough common courtesy to not comment on that with more than a nod of understanding.

When the silence threatens to divulge something more than what they both feel comfortable with, Debbie takes a deep breath and speaks again: "Ever heard of the wedding planner scheme?"

Lou perks up. "Once or twice."

"Ever wanted to ruin a merry couple's day?"

**March, 2018**

She gets home before Debbie does. It’s strange, how relative emptiness is. She’s used to being alone in her loft, has been alone in her loft since she got it some four years ago, but the feasible possibility of Debbie standing right next to her in it makes Debbie’s absence noticeable to a degree which Lou feels in her chest.

She sheds her biker gear slowly, putting it in its place, walks to the kitchen where Debbie, in true Debbie fashion, left a mess of tea, sugar, and dirty cups. Lou can’t help but smile at the familiar sight, the tightness of her chest turning more jubilant than longing.

She cleans it all up with far less exasperation than Debbie’s messiness deserves, and turns to change in her room. If Debbie’s bringing take-away, she might as well get comfortable.

Debbie arrives just as Lou finishes tying her favorite robe around herself, rustling paper bags and loud steps on her stiletto heels. “Lou?” she calls out as the door shuts behind her.

“I’m here,” she calls back, and, not waiting to check for herself, adds: “What’d you get?”

“Something good,” Debbie calls back, and oh, Lou _does_ hate her.

She can hear Debbie laying down the paper bags, then a chair creaking and an audible sigh of relief as Debbie kicks her heels off. Lou walks to the kitchen to find her sitting in the black dress she _always_ wore when she needed to intimidate someone (and Lou remembers how well the cut sits on her, remembers the feel of the fabric bunched up in her fist after Debbie would come back to her, still adrenaline-fueled, remembers, one time, putting her head under it, and she remembers picking it up from Debbie’s empty apartment to bring it over to her loft, running her fingers tentatively over her favorite outfits before putting them in boxes). There are cartons already spread out on the table, and Debbie is curiously examining a bunny mask that Lou had nearly forgotten she kept.

“What’s this?” Debbie asks when she finally spots Lou, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

Lou takes it from her before sitting down in the opposite chair. She twists it around, trying to remember why exactly she has it. It has something to do with one boring Halloween and one boring hook-up, but for the life of her Lou cannot remember _what_ it has to do with it. Over the years she has accumulated a strange, eclectic collection of left-behind items and random shit she picked off the street. Sometimes there’s a story she can tell, and sometimes it’s just _here_.

Pulling the string over her head, Lou lets the mask rest at her forehead, and shrugs at Debbie with a crooked smile. “Don’t remember.”

Debbie gives her a disbelieving glare, trying to fish for the whole story. Lou rolls her eyes and adds, “She just wasn’t that memorable.”

“Oh,” Debbie says simply, and unexpectedly shuts up. Debbie had a tendency to tease Lou about hook-ups more than Lou appreciates, under the guise of being absolutely fine with the image of Lou fucking another girl—they always pushed too hard for the no-strings-attached attitude, especially when they knew there were too many strings attached—but Lou knows that it’s because Debbie’s competitive to a fault, and she’s always needed Lou to know _she’s_ the best Lou’s ever had.

Now, Debbie’s playing mindlessly with the lid of one of the containers on the table and staring at it as well, appearing deep in thought. Lou doesn’t know how to handle it without asking, talking, figuring out what they are doing here, so she doesn’t. She ignores it, and gets them both plates, which she hopes Debbie won’t use because there are only so many surprises she can take tonight, and some water.

“Thanks,” Debbie says, and her mouth is already full, chopsticks in hand. Lou pretends to be revolted.

She opens a random container to find crispy chow mein, her stomach rumbling as the smell hits her nose, reminding her she has not eaten since breakfast, and in a moment’s decision, she foregoes the hassle of the plate to just digs in. Debbie looks at her, smug. Lou answers that with a decisive bite.

Another glimpse of Debbie’s dress reminds her. She might already know the answer, and maybe, she doesn’t want to know the answer, but she asks anyway: “So who’d you threaten?”

Debbie swallows the too-much rice in her mouth, throat working, then gulps half a cup of water down. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing lipstick all over it. Lou forgot how much of a mess she can actually be when no one is looking. At some point of their life Lou became so constantly present wherever Debbie was that it was almost as if no one was looking.

When she gathers her wits about her and fixes her demeanor, Debbie bites her lower lip gently. “You really have to ask?”

She doesn’t need to wonder how the hell Lou knew what she was up to. She probably remembers Lou’s head under that dress just as well as Lou.

If the knowledge that Debbie went up to the person who put her in jail, and would have no qualms doing it again, just so she could give him a good scare and something to keep him up at night causes Lou any discomfort, she is very good at not showing it.

“Well, then, tell me everything.”

And Debbie does. And she is _shining_. Glimmering as if freedom is reflecting off her like light. She is so outrageously pleased, so outrageously _herself_ that it makes Lou ache with joy. She slides the button she ripped off Claude Becker towards Lou, and Lou feels almost high on it, just because—just because Debbie is _here_. Just because that’s the story Debbie’s telling her. Just because.

She could forget about the heist she still doesn’t know the plan for, she could forget about _why_ Debbie needed to do what she did to Claude Becker, she could forget about almost everything that happened between them, that will inevitably happen between them, and sit here, eat chinese take-away out of the carton and bask in Debbie’s freedom with her.

**June, 2004**

“You know,” Debbie rolls onto her back, the sun hitting her eyes, bright and sudden and too much; she squints, covering her face with her hand. Besides her, Lou laughs and passes her a pair of dark sunglasses. Debbie takes them, but it doesn't help much in her position. She rolls back to her side, leaning her head on her arm as she looks over at Lou—lying on her stomach, stretched out on a beach towel, big round hat on her head, reading a book while swinging her legs up and down. Debbie spends a moment too long watching the muscles in her back undulate as she arches it.

“You were saying?” Lou asks, turning a page in her book. Debbie rolls onto her back again and steals Lou’s hat to put over her own face.

“I thought I’d like the beach more.”

She hears Lou shutting her book with a thud, then shuffling closer to Debbie, who can barely stand being in her own skin right now, let alone being touched. But Lou only raises her hat off Debbie’s face enough to peak at her under it.

“Bored?”

“Too hot to _think_.”

Lou bites at her lip contemplatively. She puts the hat back on her head, and leans closer over Debbie, shadowing her from the sun with her body. Debbie leans on her elbows, tempted to pull Lou even closer and kiss the contemplation off her face, but only tempted.

Seven months. Seven months of running an elaborate con on a couple of rich assholes who weren’t smart enough to realize their wedding planners were scamming them; seven months leading up to this moment on a beach in the Bahamas, while their marks are just finding out they have no wedding. Seven months of talking at night when Debbie was too hyped or nervous or awake to sleep, and Lou was only happy to tell her more about meeting Rusty, or hearing more about growing up with Danny, or going over their plans; seven months of casual touches turned into casual fucking and never talking about what exactly that meant; seven months of being by each other’s side. Seven months. Debbie marvels at that while Lou sits up, reaches with a hand for Debbie, who’s too skeptical about anything that requires her moving to let Lou pull her up without an explanation.

She raises an eyebrow in question. Or at least, she thinks she does because she’s still violently squinting.

“Let’s swim.”

“Hmm…” Debbie pretends to consider the offer, then surprises Lou by tackling her back into the sand before sprinting towards the water, chased by a recovering Lou only a moment later.

“You’ll pay for that,” Lou pants, delighted, as she grabs ahold of Debbie’s waist, finally, both of them half-way into the ocean, and topples them right into the water with a splash.

Debbie squeals and twists out of Lou’s grip, barely managing to keep her head above. She faces Lou, her cheeks aching from how wide her lips are stretched, and Lou pulls her closer by the calves, directing Debbie to wrap all four of her limbs around her as she sinks to her knees on the soft sand below, and kisses Debbie slow and salty.

“That’s much better,” Debbie sighs, sinks neck-deep in the water and lets Lou hold her watered-down weight. Lou’s hair is all over her forehead, sticking to it in all sorts of weird ways as she closes her eyes and tilts her head slightly back, humming contentedly, letting the waves rock them both. Debbie clings to her, concentrating on the cool touch of the ocean contrasted by the heat from Lou’s body. Tension ebbs away from her body with each wave. Seven months of work that slowly wore her down, slowly drowning.

“Let’s go dancing tonight,” she finds herself saying, craving letting loose with Lou by her side. She’s come to like Lou in more than committing crimes; that probably has something to do with all the Rusty stories, but it also has everything to do with Lou herself—calm, easy-going, and with a no-bullshit attitude, Lou seems to be the kind of person Debbie wouldn’t mind sticking around whenever, for whatever.

“Alright,” Lou murmurs absentmindedly, then sinks below surface, grabs Debbie’s wrist, and swims deeper.

**March, 2018**

When the conversation dries out, uncomfortable like never before, making Lou clear her throat and Debbie say, “Right,” before getting up and clearing the food away, they go to sleep, though sleep is a generous term. Lou can hear Debbie pattering around the kitchen, the living room, opening the door to the balcony. Lou lies awake in bed and listens until there’s the sound of shattering glass.

Lou gets up swiftly and makes her way downstairs, carefully searching for Debbie and the source of the noise in the dark. She finds Debbie already sweeping the broken glass into a dustpan, and she lets her put it in the bin before making her presence clear with a quiet: “Everything alright?”

“Shit,” Debbie jumps slightly, though she is very obviously hoping Lou hadn’t noticed that. “Did I wake you?” She washes her hands, then takes out another cup and puts a teabag in it.

“No,” Lou’s not technically lying—that didn’t wake her, but Debbie’s restlessness did prevent her from sleeping. She doesn’t need Debbie to know that, though. Lighting a mellow lamp on her way over to Debbie, Lou nods towards her black tea. “You’re not gonna get much sleep like that.”

Debbie simply shrugs and sips her drink without waiting for it to cool down. She makes her way over to the balcony, and Lou doesn’t need any prompting to follow her. They sit down in the chilly New York night and look together at city lights in silence.

“Are you okay?” Debbie asks out of nowhere. Lou’s so taken aback she whips her head to look at Debbie, who’s cradling her cup and ignoring Lou’s blinking stare.

“Yeah,” Lou answers slowly. “Why?”

Debbie stays silent for a long moment. Lou half expects her to drop the subject and half dreads the moment she won’t. The wind blows her hair all over her face, Debbie’s, but neither of them bother to clear it away. Lou stares at Debbie, and Debbie’s silent until she takes a deep, sharp breath and says: “You’re awake in the middle of the night.”

Lou furrows her brows. That never prompted a conversation about either of their well-being before. “I could ask you the same thing, then.”

Though Debbie’s very obviously not okay, and Lou knows. But that’s not why Debbie’s asking, and Lou knows that as well. She waits, and waits, and waits, and her heart is beating against her ribcage.

Eventually, Debbie lowers her head and stares into her tea. “I found the wine bottle,” she whispers, and it’s loud in Lou’s ears, louder than the noise of faraway traffic.

“Oh,” Lou exhales. She wasn’t—she wasn’t trying to hide it. “It’s… It’s for you,” she admits. The opportunity to give it to Debbie simply hadn’t risen yet; Lou got her favorite. Nicked it right off the shelf, as well, just the way Debbie likes. It was meant to be a surprise, but she wasn’t trying to hide it, so why it would frighten her so much that Debbie found it is beyond her. But it does—her heart more violent, her throat drier. Debbie’s expression is unreadable when she looks up at Lou.

“Yeah, it’s my…” she trails off, her eyes wandering sideways. Lou swallows. She’s not certain she knows what exactly bothers Debbie about it, whether the kind gesture, the reminder of the past, whatever Debbie might read into it, not until Debbie says more firmly, “You’re running a club.” It’s a statement of a fact which would have been redundant if not for the sole line connecting the club and the bottle of wine—alcohol.

The pieces fall into place and Lou _should_ be pissed, she _should_ be upset, she _should_ be offended, but she’s none of those. She’s frightened, she’s a bit sad, maybe. She shuts her eyes and runs a hand through her hair, fighting a losing battle.

“Deb,” she says, breathes in and out shakily. “I haven’t—” she gives up with a sigh. Debbie’s looking at her when she opens her eyes, something so deeply ashamed in her that Lou feels guilty. For what, she doesn’t know. “Wait here.”

Lou walks to her room slowly, opens her wallet. It lies inside, marking 17 years of sobriety. It marked “2” the year she met Debbie, and Lou’s hand shakes as she holds it in her palm, closes a fist tight enough to whiten her knuckles around it. She knows Debbie too well to think a tangible mark of the passage of time wouldn’t bother her after almost six years in the slammer, after–but she knows Debbie too well to think she wouldn’t push to see it, if she truly thinks Lou relapsed at some point.

Like many other things concerning their relationship, whatever it was, Lou didn’t want this to be brought up. But it’s pointless to mourn it now, so she walks slowly back to Debbie, sits right next to her, close enough for their thighs to be pressed together, and Debbie opens her palm as Lou drops it on her.

“Seventeen,” she says. “Haven’t touched anything in seventeen years.”

Debbie finally closes her fingers around Lou’s sobriety chip and lays her fist on Lou’s thigh gently. She’s looking down on her hand, blinking. Lou reaches out hesitantly, wanting to run her fingers through Debbie’s hair like she did many times before when Debbie seemed that overwhelmed. It hits her, too, but not as hard as it must hit Debbie, that the last time they looked at it together, the chip marked 9.

For seven years Debbie had been standing by her side whenever Lou got through another year of sobriety. For seven years Debbie had seen her through a celebration of that day, only the two of them, quiet and wonderful and a thing which made Lou so happy she used to burst with it. Debbie would put Landslide on as she dragged Lou to dance with her, something which Lou thought would be impossible to do, but whenever Debbie wrapped one arm around Lou’s neck and pressed their bodies close together, taking her hand in her other and intertwining their fingers, Lou stopped thinking about what is possible and what is not, and moved slowly with Debbie. _Time makes you bolder, even children gets older, and I’m getting older, too..._

She realizes her eyes had fallen shut only when Debbie’s voice hits her out of the blue. “Did you...?” she asks, stops herself, trusts Lou to know what she’s talking about. She certainly does. For seven years, Lou and Debbie had been playing a game of darts with a kit that Debbie got Lou for her birthday. It was an offhand comment that Lou made one random day, saying that the thing she missed most about going to bars and drinking was playing darts against strangers whose asses she kicked. Debbie took that seriously, of course.

“On my own? No,” Lou huffs, regrets the words almost as soon as they come out of her mouth. They don’t need another reminder. But Debbie doesn’t seem to be fazed.

Decisively, she says, leaving no room for Lou to argue about the time of day, “Get up.”

Lou doesn’t bother arguing. She takes the chip that Debbie slides into her palm, gets up, and goes to get the kit she packed along with Debbie’s stuff.

**June, 2004**

She got the two drinks instinctively, though Lou didn’t ask, and Debbie doesn’t believe anything as chivalry as paying (or, more accurately, sweet-talking the bartender with a bunch of lies that make him give her the drinks for free) for Lou’s drink is necessary or required. The bartender asked, and Debbie told him two, and that was that. She didn’t even notice she was actually holding two drinks until she was back at their corner table, handing the same colorful cocktail she got for herself to Lou as well. Lou took it without a single word, set it on the table, and never touched it. Debbie thinks she’s more of the Vodka or Whisky type, but she really wouldn’t know, since she never actually drank with Lou. Not like that, not in a purpose-based activity. They shared bottles of wine and maybe had a couple of shots together, but well, that doesn’t count.

The music is loud enough to drown Debbie’s thoughts away, loud enough for them to have to sit close together so they can hear each other; loud enough to vibrate through Debbie’s whole body. She sips her cocktail, refreshing sweetness down her throat, and places her hand on Lou’s thigh, rubbing slowly.

Lou’s more slouched than sitting, as she usually is, and she presses herself closer to Debbie, one arm close to being wrapped around Debbie’s shoulder, the other idly playing with the straw in her own matching cocktail.

“You can get something else,” Debbie says, not too apologetic, but enough. “I’m strong enough to take you hating my taste in drinks,” she adds, something lighter and more _them_. Lou hums, non-committal. Debbie drops the subject.

She settles comfortably against Lou’s side and goes through half a glass while Lou stirs her drink slowly, avoiding Debbie’s eyes and saying nothing. At the bottom of the drink, Debbie begins to feel the slight prickle of irritation. She has no idea why Lou would say yes to coming here if she didn’t want to, or didn’t feel like it, or whatever’s going through Lou’s mind at the moment. She hates getting upset over what she doesn’t know, though, so, inhaling a calming breath, exhaling all sour thoughts, Debbie gets up and offers a hand to Lou, puts on her best gentlemen voice, “Will the lady be so kind as to allow me this dance?”

Lou finally looks up to Debbie, fingers sliding off her straw, eyes smiling. “The lady has been waiting for far too long,” she replies while standing indignantly, taking Debbie’s hand and pulling her towards the dance floor, the music getting louder and the crowd of people thicker. She keeps Debbie as close as possible, kisses her as she leads.

“You can tell me when you want something,” Debbie murmurs into Lou’s mouth, moving her hips as Lou’s hands slide over them.

“I know.” Lou tucks her head in the crook of Debbie’s neck, and says nothing more.

**March, 2018**

After a far too close match, for Lou’s liking (she has been getting rusty, but Debbie has been, too, and all her prison years trained her for many things, Lou supposes, but not that), Debbie and she end up by Lou’s record collection, magnified by what Debbie left behind. Lou thought letting the vinyls go to waste, or gather dust, was inhuman, and by the look on Debbie’s face when she picks up her old copy of the Cabaret soundtrack, she is pleased to find her own records amongst Lou’s.

Lou knows what’s coming, but she lets Debbie browse, run her fingers tentatively over the familiar sleeves. “ _Remember when we went through five different stores for this one?” “Yes”_ , scrunch her face at the new sleeves Lou’s acquired. _”When the fuck did you get Roxy Music in here?_ ” scowl at what she cannot even recognize _. “You’re getting with the times here, Miller?_ ” She stands back and watches, talks Debbie through it with meaningless comments, answers every question Debbie has. Eventually, Debbie slips Rumors out and walks over to Lou’s record player, blindly turning the familiar sound system on.

She stands in the middle of the living room while Stevie Nicks’ voice echoes all over the walls of the loft, and waits for Lou to join her. It takes Lou a while to get over the lump in her throat, the feeling of paralysis that keeps her in place, but Debbie doesn’t hurry her on. She waits. She waits for Lou to make the move on her own, and when Lou does, she wraps herself around Lou’s trembling body, takes her trembling hand in hers.

**June, 2004**

They squeeze their way back to a table, sweaty and breathless and Debbie is exuberant, nearly high, fingers clutching Lou’s sleeve as to not lose her until they sit down as far as they can from the crowd.

“You want a drink?” Debbie asks. Her throat is itching and she is out of breath. She could use ten drinks, right about now, and only half of them should be water. Lou shakes her head no, but nonetheless says: “Water.” She sits close to the wall and leans her head on it, panting.

“You made me put on my best moves,” she accuses with a smile. Debbie merely shrugs in return before going to get them some cold water with a slice of cucumber and some mint. Lou drowns her glass in one go while Debbie drinks hers slowly, meticulously. Then she slumps against Lou’s side, kisses her cheek, and curls, sleep-ready, at her side. Lou’s silent and Debbie’s exhausted, so they sit, Lou playing with Debbie’s hair absentmindedly, Debbie nearly drifting off.

Then Lou jerks, not enough to push Debbie off, but enough to shake her, and while Debbie blinks her eyes open, Lou quietly confesses: “I don’t drink.” She does not halt the fingers that are now running through Debbie’s hair, nor does she push Debbie away; she stays exactly the same as before, but there is tension in her that Debbie can feel, rigidity that seeps through her bones all the way out to Debbie’s flesh. To expose her confusion would be to expose too much, so Debbie keeps her tone leveled as she states: “We’ve drowned bottles of wine together.”

Lou kisses her forehead. “You are completely oblivious when you ought not to be, and too damn perceptive when you ought not to be.”

Debbie lets Lou’s words conquer the space around them. She brings her hand to where Lou rests hers and intertwines their fingers, squeezing Lou lightly. Lou’s breaths are quick and short and forced, and Debbie tries to balance that by controlling her own rhythm.

“Met Rusty in a shelter,” Lou goes on, and Debbie’s not sure if she’s bringing Rusty up because it comforts her or because it comforts Debbie. “He helped me get out of there. Never got to see me clean, though. I think he’d like me better this way.”

“How long?” Debbie asks, her eyes shut. It seems as if the music has completely drowned out for them, and only their hushed voices exist.

“Two years. January first, two thousand and one.”

“New Year’s resolution?”

“Well,” Lou chuckles, then she sighs. “I don’t know. It was as much about the decision as the process, so I had to… make it count, I guess.”

There are a lot of things that Debbie wants to ask, to say, to apologize for, to regret, to— “Do you want to go?” is what comes out of her mouth.

“No,” is what comes out of Lou’s.

Debbie raises her head to find Lou’s neck stretched and her eyes shut. She runs a finger along Lou’s jawline.

“You know,” Lou mumbles. Debbie sees her lips move more than she hears Lou’s words. “One day, one of us is going to break the other’s heart,” an amused twitch to her lips. “So, let’s decide now.”

Debbie’s heart is hammering, her stomach churning. She looks at Lou, and she is beautiful, and she is sitting in the middle of a dance club, slouched on a leather seat, head against the wall, holding Debbie’s hand, sweat still glistening over her skin, and she is making Debbie want.

Debbie can’t think of anything to answer besides: “Why decide?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow hi! it's been a long while but here we are with chapter 2!! really, _really_ hope you guys will like it. i've changed the structure i've planned out a bit, so there might be four chapters and not three, but i'm still not sure about that. anyway, there you go!
> 
> comments and thoughts are always appreciated <3

**April, 2018**

Twenty thousand dollars, seven people. Lou’s not gonna lie—doubt still lingers underneath her willingness to participate in Debbie’s scheme, and even though she’s slightly impressed, slightly fascinated, had slightly forgotten Debbie’s contagious eagerness when it comes to running jobs and is now slightly eager herself, Lou still worries, still wonders how far Debbie is going because she can, and how far she is going because there is a point she’s trying to prove to herself?

It doesn’t matter, not much; Lou does wonder if Debbie would have walked away from the con if Lou had refused to join, does wonder what exactly it means that for Debbie, Lou seems to be inseparable from the con itself, woven through it thread by thread. Knowing Debbie, it’s not an easy task to make her back off anything, and it frightens her, the thought that a single word would have deterred Debbie away from something she had spent nearly six years planning. It’s all hypothetical, of course, but even this hypothetical weight weighs Lou’s ability to see clearly down.

If there is anything that she is unwilling to do for Debbie, it is to encourage Debbie’s self-sabotaging tendencies; Lou’s learned to be careful, learned where to draw a line and how to differentiate between Debbie’s ambition and destructiveness. But this is Debbie’s homecoming, and she cannot, will not take it away from her—no matter how insane it sounds.

So, twenty thousand dollars, seven people. The work begins.

**Rose**

Lou’s collection of fashion magazines comes in handy. They sit together, flipping through the materials, trying to find a perfect match for Debbie’s needs. It reminds Lou of those faraway nights, staying up late much for the same reasons, synced enough to understand each other with a single look, a single flick of a wrist, starting to yawn then falling into bed together.

Except, something’s sitting tight around Lou’s neck like a horrendous Edwardian collar. Maybe it’s that Debbie sits across from her, _far_ , careful not to let even their legs touch under the table. She used to peer over Lou’s shoulder, _restless_ ; used to scrap her fingers under the hairline on Lou’s nape while leaning forward and pointing at what she wanted. It’s a physical gap that contains eight years of being apart in its length. Contains uncertainty and all the things they haven’t talked about, will probably never talk about.

Debbie won’t fall into bed with Lou; Lou’s starting to wonder if she even falls into bed on her own. She looks exhausted enough to collapse, but she grins with that twinkle in her eyes when Lou speaks of the impressive failures of Rose Weil, fashion designer, and Lou can’t help but grin right back at her, in that way that only Debbie could ever bring out. There’s nothing that either of them likes observing more than _impressive_ , even if it’s an impressive catastrophe, and tonight feels so familiar and so strange all at once that Lou takes comfort in their shared wicked tastes.

Rose is very nearly a mark. She easily could have been, if not for the enormous debt and the fact they need her on their side. But bringing her aboard feels so much like roping a mark in that Lou almost feels sorry for her. If she wasn’t getting millions out of this, Lou _would_ have felt sorry for her. They don’t need the deal to be officially made to know that it is done, not with the kind of person that Rose is, and so Lou sits back, satisfied, relaxed, while Debbie arranges all the papers and magazines they have spread in front of them back into a neat pile.

She’s even more relaxed and satisfied after they speak to Rose.

“You’re good,” Debbie tells her as they walk away from the disastrous display of horrendous fashion.

“The best, really,” Lou winks at her.

They’re waiting for the light to turn green at a crosswalk, Debbie’s hands in her pockets, the wind blowing her hair all around. She’s been asking about Lou’s fringe, but honestly, Lou’s not sure how _she_ manages her mane.

“Yeah,” Debbie glances at her, voice barely audible over the heavy New York traffic. “No one like you.”

Lou hangs a moment too long behind as Debbie strides across the road.

**Constance**

Constance is a given, at least for Lou. Constance herself barely needs any convincing at all. It’s Debbie who’s doubtful until the very moment Constance nicks Danny’s watch right off her wrist. Debbie had always been more easily impressed when it came to people who had the guts to try and fool her. People who actually fooled her, that’s a whole other story.

Sure, Constance’s skills bought Debbie’s attention and posed Constance as a feasible possibility, but Lou could see it on Debbie—she needed character, and Constance would have been doomed, eventually, if she couldn’t offer any. Lou’s not sure what moment Constance managed to slip their watches off—God, it _has_ been a long time, hasn’t it, if she doesn’t even notice that she’s being robbed—but she sure as hell knows Debbie left calling it out to the last second as a test. And she sure as hell knows how to recognize the amused, slightly fascinated look on Debbie’s face when she sees it, and the moment Constance walks away with her shoulders hunched after giving them back their watches, that definitely has Debbie showcasing that particular face.

Lou hasn’t ever truly got it, this part of Debbie—the part that loves being challenged, but only if she wins. The part that searches for the risk but will never deal with the consequences of finding it. But, right now is not the time to try and figure out what she hasn’t been able to figure out for fifteen years.

“Where’d you find her, anyway?” Debbie asks as they walk out of the Subway store.

Lou looks straight ahead as she tells the story, her and Debbie’s steps synchronized to a T. “Homeless shelter. She used to steal shit off people who came to donate clothes and whatnot, freaked out when I noticed her. It was really only uphill from there.”

“And what were you doing at a homeless shelter, exactly?”

Taking the steps down to the subway two at a time, Lou notices Debbie has fallen slightly out of step with her. She reaches the landing, looks over her shoulder. “Volunteering, what else?”

Debbie catches up to her, then passes her by. “A business owner and a philanthropist,” she whistles as if to convey how impressed she is, but Lou can see through it—she’s mainly trying to wrap her head around it.

Lou doesn’t manage to answer that until after they’ve sneaked their way to the platforms. “I’m still the low-end criminal you know and love,” she whispers in her ear, their shoulders bumping. It’s rush hour, and they barely squeeze their way past to their train.

Debbie doesn’t answer that; just grabs Lou’s jacket and pulls her after her onto their line.

**Amita**

Lou had met Amita only a handful of times; she had always been _Debbie’s_ \-- Debbie’s friend, Debbie’s contact—but more than a decade together had turned whatever was Debbie’s a little bit Lou’s, as well, and whatever was Lou’s just a little bit Debbie’s, too. She regards Amita as more of an acquaintance, really, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any dinners together after Debbie and her had moved to a permanent apartment in Brooklyn, or weeks that Amita had spent at their place when her mother got on her nerves and Lou had gotten to know her a little bit better.

She knows Danny had worked with her as well, but how well she knew him, Lou never actually learned. They mainly ran some sales through Amita’s shop when jewels needed to be gone and laundered for liquid money, but Lou wasn’t surprised when Debbie told her Amita’s the only person fit for this job. She could see, every time Amita spent time with them, that Debbie respected and trusted the woman, something that Lou cann’t say about most people in this world, not on the same level—the quiet, deep level.

So she doesn’t question Debbie’s decision. She’s working through her list of possible hackers—which is a harder job than she could possibly have imagined in this political climate and with Debbie’s raised standards—when Debbie comes down from her room, sliding her arms into her coat.

Lou glances over to her, but Debbie doesn’t seem like she wants to chat, and Lou knows exactly where she’s going, so Lou prepares herself for a few hours of hackers giving her one aneurysm after the other.

Then Debbie stops at the door like she had forgotten something, turns around to Lou. “We do have rooms for five other people here, right?”

Lou turns a page of her list over, snorts. “You’re lucky I got this place and not the one in Manhattan I had my eye on.”

“I’m never just _lucky_ , baby,” Debbie intones. Something still clenches inside Lou’s chest whenever they play this game, but she can only blame herself for bringing it back. She looks up at Debbie, a skeptic, raised brow as her weapon. “And you could never survive living in the middle of Manhattan, anyway,” Debbie changes tactics.

“Oh, how well you know me,” Lou retorts, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms over her chest.

The door’s already open and Debbie’s one step out of it, but she lingers, fingers tapping on the wood as she looks at Lou with an intensity that prevents Lou from turning away. “Did you pack it all up yourself?” she asks out of the blue, but Lou doesn’t need more than a millisecond to catch up to her meaning.

“Danny helped, Tess and Rusty, too. Even Reuben and Linus came by. We made a field day out of it.”

Debbie nods, smiles something sad and fond at the same time. “So, you and Rusty, reunited at last.”

Lou can’t breathe for a second there. “Thanks to Deborah Ocean’s prison sentence.”

“I did you a favor, after all.”

Lou wants to laugh, she really does, but she’s got a feeling it would come out way too hysteric-sounding for Debbie’s taste.

_[Goddamn, Miller,_ Rusty whistled, hugged her tight and close. _I could have sworn you weren’t that Australian crook I was so fond of for a second there._

_Still me, Rust,_ she couldn’t help but hold him for a little too long. _Can still beat your goddamn ass if you don’t behave, too._

They had been packing for four hours when they took their first break, and Rusty fell down beside her with a heavy groan. She was out of the apartment, sitting on the steps down by the street; she just needed to get away for a few minutes, breathe in soot instead of Debbie’s scent. Rusty took one look up and down, then bumped their shoulders together.

_You wanna tell me how the hell you let an Ocean fuck you over?_ he asked, and Lou would have punched him if she didn’t know exactly what he meant by that.

_She fucked herself over._

_Come on._

Lou did laugh back then, a little hysteric, ran a hand through her hair. She couldn’t say a thing.

_Sobriety really fucking suits you_ , Rusty spoke instead, and she knew exactly what he meant by that, too.

_We were fighting too much,_ Lou let slip. _I wasn’t supposed to…_

_Love her?_

Lou fell quiet for what seemed like an endless stretch of time, but Rusty just sat there. Eventually, she let her head fall back, closed her eyes. _Yeah. I love her._

_You never realize you’re conning yourself till it’s too late._ ]

“Tell Amita I can’t wait to see her.”

“Find me a hacker.”

**Nine-Ball**

There is no way Debbie is going to go along with this easily, but Lou’s dealt with many of Deborah Ocean’s unreasonable objections to people who are a perfect fit for the job before, and Nine-Ball is exactly that, albeit not the traditional person one might want on their group of cons. Lou cannot see how anyone would do better than her, especially since they’ve been sitting in her room for only about half an hour before she gets into the Met’s security system, and only half of that time was spent on an attempt to do just that.

She asks a lot of questions, and Nine-Ball tells her nothing, which, figures. The only thing she truly needs to know is whether or not Nine-Ball is capable of what the rumors say she is capable of, and that seems to check out. A closed off hacker is definitely better than one who babbles about things they should not be babbling about. And, alright, maybe Lou also thinks she is funny and likes having a person whose sense of humor is so similar to her own that it’s almost freaky, on the team.

Debbie’s funny, yeah, but Debbie’s also infuriating, and Lou likes laughing every once in a while. Debbie’s also, well, _Debbie_. She’s been having a nice, easy-going conversation with Nine-Ball whenever she wasn’t trying to figure out things about her life, and that is something she had not had for a very long time now.

“You smoke?” Nine-Ball had asked her at some point, offering her blunt to Lou.

“Nah,” Lou had simply declined, and Nine-Ball checked her out curiously once before nodding and putting the blunt back between her lips. Debbie’s gonna give her hell for this, but Lou can handle that, too.

“So, who’s that Debbie girl?” Nine-Ball asks, fingers flying over her keyboard, eyes intent on her screen.

“She should be here soon,” Lou answers distractedly, watching figures change far too quickly on Nine-Ball’s computer. “Don’t let her scare you.”

_Not that you seem like a person she could scare_ , Lou thinks, and that is another point in Nine-Ball’s favor.

“And we gonna do all this for her?” Nine-Ball nods towards the Met logo on the screen.

Lou leans forwards, watching more closely, “For the money.”

“Sure,” Nine-Ball says skeptically and stretches. Lou side-eyes her, but Nine-Ball doesn’t seem to care.

Then she’s in, and Debbie comes back, and Lou has no time to dwell on Nine-Ball’s perceptiveness.

**Tammy**

“What about him?” Lou holds the picture of a second-tier fence up for Debbie to see. If she thought a hacker was a tough find in this day and age, apparently her supply of fences had become significantly shorter since the last time she had to come up with one. She’s not sure if criminals are just going out of business faster than they come into it, or if she simply is more detached than she thought she was.

“It’s a him,” Debbie dismisses the offer quickly.

“So?”

“So I don’t want a him.”

“Because it’s a him, or because it’s a _him_?”

She never would have asked before; she would have known. She used to think she knew everything there was to know, but she’s not so certain anymore—some sort of uncomfortable dense water slowly eating at the edges of her consciousness. It’s not that she should be jealous or surprised—they both had far too many conversations about sex with other people while lying in bed after having sex themselves; it’s just the fact she doesn’t _know_ that bothers her. She’s not even sure the question is entirely serious, but she isn’t so sure it’s entirely not serious, either. It shouldn’t even matter.

Whatever it is for her, it makes Debbie roll her eyes.

“No, it’s not a _him_ , I barely know the guy.”

“So, what?”

Debbie seems to get more exasperated by the second, as if Lou’s not catching on to something she’s supposed to just instinctively get. “A him gets noticed, a her gets ignored, and for once we want to be ignored.”

Lou just looks for a long moment—searches for something, anything, in Debbie’s eyes besides the rising anxiousness over not finding the right person for the job and her current agitation with Lou. She finds none, but that says nothing about what’s actually going in Debbie’s head right now.

Then, it hits her.

**July, 2005**

Debbie can see Lou staring at that motorcycle parked by the corner of the country road diner they’ve stopped at. She isn’t very subtle about it. She isn’t _remotely_ subtle about it.

“You’re drooling,” she tells her as she sits down back in their booth, drying her hands with napkins. The restroom had no paper towels left, and Debbie’s wearing an Alexander McQueen that Lou had stolen off the rack as a gift— _For me, baby?_ Debbie had over-accentuated her surprise. Lou smirked at her, winked, _“For me.”_

Lou turns her gaze away from the bike. “What?”

Debbie can’t suppress her laughter. “Jesus, Lou. You want that bike more than you want me in this dress.”

With a very fake pout on, Lou intones, “Oh, honey, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Shut up.”

Lou sighs, deep and longing, eyes flickering over to the bike again. “It’s a Fat Boy.”

“Whatever gets you off.”

Lou ignores that quip. Her eyes, now back on Debbie, are shining with what has become Debbie’s favorite devilish glint. Debbie leans forwards, chin in hand, eyebrow raised. They very rarely need words to communicate an idea nowadays. Debbie has never had any sort of partnership like this before, and if anyone was to press, she’d admit she’s not sure she could have it, _this_ , with anybody but the Australian mess that sauntered into her life some two years ago. But nobody’s pressing, and Debbie doesn’t want to admit that, not to Lou at any rate. Not to Danny either, who is the closest there is to pressing.

“Ever ridden on the back of one of those?” Lou asks, tongue darting out to wet her lips.

“Can’t say I have.”

“Come on.”

There’s no alarm on the thing; no lock; it’s simply parked, naively, while its owner is having his lunch inside. Lou scoffs her contempt before pressing Debbie against the side of the bike, kissing her senseless while her hand sneaks down to bypass the bike’s ignition.

Debbie keeps an eye out, one hand on Lou’s neck, the other keeping herself steady against the bike, and right before Lou’s tongue almost makes her lose focus, Lou rasps, “Hold tight, yeah?” and jumps over the seat. Debbie quickly follows suit, bunching her dress up and wrapping two arms around Lou’s torso.

She plants a kiss to the shell of Lou’s ear, says, “Go,” and Lou does.

She isn’t sure how long Lou drives, isn’t sure where they are going on it, and she doesn’t particularly care. The car they left behind in the diner’s parking lot wasn’t worth much, and they probably would have abandoned it sooner or later. Inside of it they had nothing but necessities that would have been lost sooner or later, too. This is what they’ve been doing for the past few months, and Debbie doesn’t want anything else right now.

Debbie holds on tight, just like Lou had told her to—thighs pressed to Lou’s, fingers clutching, cheek against Lou’s shoulder blade. There’s no talking with the roaring of the engine in their ears and the wind of the open road whooshing around them, so Debbie closes her eyes, feels Lou’s heartbeat and the vibrations under her, and tastes Lou’s jubilation on her tongue every time Lou vocalizes it.

They’ve made many reckless almost-mistakes over these months of careless travel, but Debbie thinks this is, by far, their worst decision to date, and she can’t help but love it, love it to the point of oblivion.

Nowhere to be, nowhere to go, nowhere to say that they have come from—and nothing but getting by to do. Debbie has never let go this way before.

Unfortunately, they also have to let the bike go. They’re far away from any town when they finally start to run out of gas, and since they’re not as reckless as to go pump up stolen property just like that, they let it fall by the side of the road, hair windswept and legs giving out underneath them just a bit, and walk farther down the road to wait on a hitchhike.

Lou’s smiling wide as she looks over at Debbie, and Debbie can’t help but grab her by the collar and pull her in, not exactly kissing her, just standing with one arm around her back and one arm placed at her collarbone, lips touching-not-touching. They must make a hell of a pair on the side of a highway with a desert behind them, Debbie in her Alexander McQueen and Lou in leather.

“What’s our story?” Lou asks, palms resting against Debbie’s hips.

Debbie bites her lower lip in consideration. “Robbed?”

“On our way to a family gathering.”

“I was going to introduce you to my parents for the first time.”

“Oh, _honey_.”

Debbie does kiss her, then. “Hmm. Maybe they don’t need to know their daughter is dating a criminal.”

“ _Dating_? Gosh, I thought we were past that already.”

Before Debbie can take their banter further, Lou pushes her off and goes to flag a truck that is about to pass by them. “You wanna take the lead?” she calls over as the truck, to their genuine surprise, signals that it is stopping.

Debbie steps closer, hands twitching in preparation at her sides. “Be my guest.”

They open the door, and before they can get a hello in, the woman at the driver’s seat smirks at them, goes: “I think you forgot your motorcycle over there. Though I don’t think that I can truly call it yours.”

Debbie exchanges a glance with Lou.

“Maybe you should take this one,” Lou tells her, steps back from the door.

Debbie Ocean never freezes, and this isn’t going to be any different to all the times she had to improvise before -- except, the driver continues:

“I promise I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” she points a thumb to the back of the truck.

With Debbie and Lou still hesitating at the door, the driver seals the deal. “Hop in. I’m Tammy.”

**April, 2018**

Lou catches the light in Debbie’s eyes when she asks her, “What about Tammy?”

“She doesn’t do this anymore, does she?” Debbie muses, already sounds like the challenge of roping Tammy back in from her suburban haven is exactly the kind of challenge she has been waiting for.

“Well, just take a look in her garage while you’re there,” Lou winks.

Debbie chuckles, “Of course.”

“I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble convincing her to come back to us.”

“Well, she never could resist me.”

No, Lou knows it, Tammy never could. It’s not rare for Debbie to have that sort of influence on people, and Lou used to pride herself on being affiliated with that kind of person. It used to be amusing, the way people were drawn to her; watching them flock around her like moths to a flame, then having her always, always come back to her.

But here it is again, the lump in Lou’s throat. She’s peering at Debbie, whose eyes are still shining, and suddenly there’s nothing that could make her look away. The words come out much less teasing, much rawer:

“Could anyone?”

**August, 2006**

Even at night, Debbie’s skin is prickling with heat. She gathers her hair up in a ponytail, fixes the angle of the fan that’s blowing air on her and Tammy as they sit on the couch in Debbie and Lou’s newly acquired Brooklyn apartment. Even the plain white tank top that fits her loosely and the black shorts are too much.

But Tammy laughs at her when she groans in frustration and leans back comfortably in her long jeans and heavy blouse.

“You’re a drama queen,” she tells her, and Debbie rolls her eyes. She likes Tammy for saying these sort of things, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to show that, which Tammy finds amusing. Having a little pack of criminals is always how Debbie had imagined her life going, but it’s nice to finally be there, and it’s nice that after the initial shock from Tammy’s direct approach had worn off, Debbie found her, well, nice. And more than a little funny. And more than a little willing to work with her and Lou.

“ _It would be nice to change things up a bit,_ ” Lou had commented after their semi-road-trip in Tammy’s truck, and Debbie looked her over once, found her smiling in that telling way of hers, and took the offer to Tammy.

They ran a few successful rental scams, which is how they eventually found the apartment they are currently in, and somehow, along the way, Debbie had found herself liking Tammy. Liking, even more, the way Tammy seemed to be nothing less than comfortable and relaxed around Lou and her.

So Tammy stayed.

“I just hate the summer.”

“Still sound like a drama queen to me.”

And there’s the other thing: Tammy’s more than nice. She’s cute. She’s hot. She’s kind of Debbie’s style. And Lou had noticed, but Debbie had laughed it off with: _No, but how about this guy over there?_

“You know I can’t give you an objective answer about men.”

“Just _try_.”

“Fine. He seems like someone you’d want to fuck. Happy?”

“Geez, thanks.”

It’s, well, Debbie doesn’t know how exactly they got to the point of helping each other pick one night stands out in a crowd, just remembers how they went from joking about it to her telling Lou: _why not?_

_[Because I don’t understand it, but I don’t want you to. Because I know that I shouldn’t not want you to, because we’re not that kind of people, you and I, we don’t do what we’ve been doing, and one day one of us is going to break the other’s heart, and I don’t want it to be me, and I don’t want it to be you, so it seems like the only thing to do is say why not.)_

Lou quirked an eyebrow at her, then kept their eyes locked as she approached the girl she was checking out, and then...

Somehow, fucking a guy in a room adjacent to one where Lou’s fucking a girl is turning Debbie on more than it should. Maybe. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know how exactly they work, but they _work_ , so it doesn’t matter. They fall back in with each other smelling of other people’s perfume and Debbie swears that it’s exciting, and if her throat sometimes closes up thinking about Lou making another person come, it’s not as strong a feeling. And it shouldn’t be, because that’s how they are, and that’s how it works for people like them: stagnation means danger, and people aren’t that different to places.

But it’s strangers, always, and somehow admitting that she wants that with Tammy is both ridiculous and scary. Both a possible fuck-up and the opportunity of a lifetime, which is just how her life goes, generally, isn’t it?

And it’s not that she knows about every person that Lou fucks, and it’s not that Lou knows about every person that Debbie fucks, but it’s Tammy, and even if Tammy wanted to, it would be harder to set the ground rules and deal with the morning after, or the month after.

But it seems to matter less and less as time trickles by, and Tammy’s smiling at Debbie over the rim of her wine glass. Lou’s out. Lou’s out, probably doing what Debbie is thinking about doing right now.

“What’s gotten into you?” Tammy asks with a laugh, because, well, Debbie’s staring, isn’t she?

“I don’t know,” she replies, and God help her, but she can’t help the playful tone of it.

Tammy raises an eyebrow, stretches over to put her glass down on the table. “You want a fuck, don’t you?” she asks, and Debbie sputters despite the fact she has nothing in her mouth.

“What?”

“You’ve got a tell. That’s the way you look at Lou when you want a fuck.”

For some reason, the only way that Debbie can respond to _that_ is with a smirk. That’s what she does best. She flirts. She plays the game.

“Debbie.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you trying to get in my pants?”

God help her, but Tammy doesn’t sound like she’s objecting.

“And if I am?”

“What would Lou say?”

“She’d say ‘I told you so,’ but I think she’s too busy with someone else right now.”

Popping a button open on her blouse is not the way Debbie thought that Tammy would react, but that’s what she does, and Debbie scoots closer, lowers her voice.

“It’s not like that. We’re not like that.”

Tammy reaches out, tucks a stray strand of hair behind Debbie’s ear. “I’ve seen you together.”

“It’s fun. It’s not…” Debbie leans in and leans closer and Tammy lets her get close enough so that they are breathing the same limited amount of air. “We can have some fun, too.”

Tammy pulls her in so quick that Debbie barely has any time to think about the fact that it’s happening, so she doesn’t, just moves to straddle Tammy and breathe into their kiss, “We’re cons, Tam-Tam.” She has Lou’s voice in her head, saying what she always does when the silence between them stretches for too long and it seems as if one of them is about to break: _we don’t do love_. “You know what that means.”

**April, 2018**

_This_ is Debbie in her full glory: standing in the middle of a room, a commanding presence who has nothing to fear, telling people how they are about to get rich. In this case, insanely, unbelievably, criminally rich. _This_ is Debbie in her full glory: all business, flawless plan laid out in light, witty, funny, leading. _This_ is Debbie in her full glory, and God, Lou could never forget _this_.

Could never forget Debbie’s full confidence in herself right before, could never forget how good she looks during, could never forget how jubilant she seems after. Could never forget how she would absolutely do this every day of her life with Debbie, stand right beside her and command along with her. Could never forget how Debbie makes everything seem possible in these moments.

Could never forget how easy wanting Debbie is, like _this_.

It’s exhilarating, and Debbie was right -- watering down vodka is a waste compared to _this_. Anything is. She sits, and she watches, and she lets herself feel it trickling down her spine whenever they join together in the harmony of a perfect crime. When it’s over she lets herself forget how they got here, and only remembers why they will always end up here.

The room is electrically silent for a few heartbeats, and Debbie looks at her like she did that day Lou sauntered into her life, and Lou thinks, feels, knows, she could never be as happy without _this_.

And then: “Holy _shit_ ,” Constance calls, and Debbie finally turns away.

*

After everybody’s gone, scattered to take care of their little private lives, Debbie slumps down on the couch across from Lou, stretches her arm on the back of it towards her so casually even Lou almost buys it—but then there’s that look. That look Lou is all too familiar with.

“You know,” she turns sideways to face Debbie, folds one knee up on the couch and spreads her legs as much as she can, leans forward. “All you have to do is ask.”

“Ask for what?”

“A fuck.”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Debbie tries to feign innocence and confusion all at once. It’s not a good look on her, and Lou snorts and lets her know that.

Debbie rolls her eyes and drops the pretense, slides lower in her seat and leans her cheek on her arm.

“You have a tell, darling,” Lou flashes her a toothy grin. Something’s coiling up in her stomach, but that doesn’t mean she needs to drop the game.

“I have no tells whatsoever.”

“Oh, you do, when you want a fuck. Even Tammy knows it.”

Debbie’s eyes widen. She perks up. Genuine surprise. It almost makes Lou laugh.

“How do you know about that?” Debbie demands.

“Soccer moms are always the screaming type,” Lou winks at her.

Debbie’s still evidently upset over the tell, but she makes no further comment. Slowly, her face falls back into her silent request, and the two of them fall silent, their eyes locked, their breathing matched. Debbie plays with the loose seams on the couch, never diverting her eyes away from Lou. It would be so very easy to give in and crawl over her, straddle her, fuck her; but Debbie Ocean always gets what she wants, and Lou had decided at some point of their acquaintance that she isn’t gonna make it as easy for her as everybody else does.

“All I’m saying is,” she jumps up, walks over to where Debbie is now lifting her head towards her in anticipation. “When you want something,” she bends down, holds Debbie’s head in place with a thumb and forefinger to her chin, looks in her eyes. “You can ask.”

Debbie holds her gaze, unrelenting, and makes no move until Lou plants a kiss on her cheek, turns to go, and she grabs Lou by her jacket, lifts herself up on her knees and brings their lips together.

It’s unusually soft for what she remembers of Debbie, wet and warm in a way that makes Lou’s breath catch in her throat, and she puts just a little bit of tongue into it before Debbie lets go, slumps back down with a devious upward slant to her mouth.

“I’ll remember that,” she says.

Lou puts on her best mischievous façade before leaving Debbie alone on the couch. She goes to her room, shuts the door behind her and leans her forehead against it, exhaling long and heavy.

She never forgot how kissing Debbie felt; years spent with the lingering ghost of Debbie’s touch like another layer of skin on her body, so tangible at times that any girl she touched felt that and not her own touch back.

Her body, though, seems to only now recall.

Lou bangs her fist against the door. “ _Fuck_.”

*****

Of course, Debbie can’t make it easy on Lou, either.

She’s checking on her club before she’ll have no time to do that for a while, washing her hands in the bathroom, when Debbie decides to creep up on her.

Lou throws her a look over her shoulder and turns back to the mirror.

“Impressive,” Debbie says, leaning on the wall. The click of the door’s lock is extremely loud.

“What is?” Lou asks with her back to Debbie, drying her hands.

“You, a legitimate business owner. Took a look around. It’s looking good.”

Lou turns to her, dumps the paper towel in the bin. “A girl’s gotta get by.”

Debbie pushes herself off the wall, saunters towards Lou. “Care to lend a girl in need a hand, then?”

“Why, is she asking?”

“Yeah.”

It’s seconds before they’re both in a locked stall with Lou crowding Debbie against the door, hands on either side of her head and her tongue deep down her throat.

Debbie has one hand on Lou’s neck, the other trying to get under her shirt—it’s a complicated maneuver, and after handing in her complaint— _I’ll take it up to the manager_ —Debbie gives up and cups Lou’s breast over her clothes. She runs a blunt fingernail over a nipple, massages way too gently for the many layers Lou’s wearing, and Lou pants into her mouth and moves one hand to her jaw.

Debbie pushes her back.

“We’re making it quick,” she says before taking her hands away from Lou’s body to work down her own zipper.

Lou keeps her fingers on Debbie’s jaw. “You’re in a hurry?”

“Busy schedule.”

Humming, Lou plants her mouth along Debbie’s neck and doesn’t shy away from using teeth, which grants her a hitch of breath and a very weak “ _tsk-tsk_.” Lou answers by sucking a mark to the juncture of Debbie’s shoulder, makes Debbie’s hips buck and a full-blown moan to echo in the stall. She takes one hand off the wall so she can unbutton Debbie’s shirt, gazing into Debbie’s hungry eyes.

“Thought I’d use my mouth.”

Debbie swallows visibly but doesn’t give in. “No time.”

“Shame.”

When Debbie’s burgundy blouse dangles off her shoulders, and Debbie has lowered her jeans enough for Lou to put her hand where Debbie wants it, Lou lowers her head to kiss and lick at Debbie’s collarbone, starts working her up—too slow for Debbie’s liking, it seems, since she squirms and pushes her hips up, clutches at Lou’s scalp. Her fingernails send tingles up Lou’s spine, and when she growls after not getting Lou to go faster, Lou can’t help but take her hand away completely, cup Debbie’s cheeks between two palms and kiss her deep and lazy.

“Lou,” Debbie warns, arching her back.

“I’ll never leave you hanging, jailbird. Don’t worry,” she speaks against the corner of Debbie’s mouth, fingering the strap of her bra.

“But you’ll always make me late.”

Lou can’t help but huff a laugh. “Alright,” planting one hand back on the door, she puts her other down Debbie’s panties. “Quick it is.”

Her fingers, Debbie used to say, are nimbler when she’s getting a girl off than when she’s playing a card trick. Lou can’t argue with that. This is much more fun.

And Debbie—there’s that thing that happens when Lou gets her worked up high enough, where her quick tongue and sharp mind seem to take off, turn into _loud_ , unabashedly _wild_ nonsensical jumble. It makes Lou thrive, feel like she’s done something that Debbie won’t be able to brush away, and usually it also requires an enormous amount of effort put in, but maybe Lou doesn’t remember everything perfectly, because it’s happening right now.

Under any other circumstances, she would just let Debbie moan in French and German and various languages of Slavic origin which Lou really can’t pay the mind to recognize, would encourage her to be louder, would drink every vowel of it in for the moment Debbie is gone again. But right now she has customers outside, and she doesn’t want them scared off. She also wouldn’t be able to stop herself from rutting against Debbie’s thigh, and that won’t do.

“Shh, shh shh,” she coos, lips to Debbie’s ear. “I’m right here, aren’t I?”

Debbie bites her bottom lip, nods, wears it between her teeth as she tries to rein herself in. Her fingernails are leaving indentations on Lou’s nape and her eyes are closed, a wrinkle between her brows that Lou wants to kiss.

She doesn’t. She licks the shell of Debbie’s ear gently, instead. When a high-pitched whine makes its way out of Debbie’s quivering chest, Lou takes mercy on her and quiets her with a kiss. Debbie kisses back urgently, puts everything she’s got out into Lou’s mouth, and Lou shuts her eyes as well, breathes through her nose, and tries to ignore how much she _wants_ right now.

It’s not long at all before Debbie begins to run her hands all over Lou’s body, attempting to find solid ground to hold onto. Lou doesn’t let her, keeps the brutal pace that Debbie had demanded and matches her tongue to it. Not until she comes, shaking, a guttural sound vibrating through her all the way to Lou’s guts, her hand to the wall so she can stay upright, then slumps so low Lou has to help her stand.

When she’s sure Debbie can manage—when Debbie blinks her eyes open, really, and looks at Lou as if _she’s_ the one to have gotten _her_ off—Lou lets her be, grabs some toilet paper and wipes her hand on it before throwing it in the toilet, while Debbie shimmies her jeans back up.

Then, she puts two hands on the door again, and kisses Debbie’s forehead, breathes the scent of her favorite shampoo in. Five years and it hasn’t changed. “Quick enough?” she asks into her hair. Debbie hums her approval.

Really, they should get Debbie decent and get out. There’s a very long masturbation session that Lou would like to get to as soon as possible, and wherever Debbie needs to go, she probably should get going. Besides, some drunken ass can would sue the place if the toilets are locked for too long.

But Lou can’t bring herself to move, looking down at Debbie, who seems content enough right here, leveling out her breath, playing with one of Lou’s necklaces.

“Did you miss me?” she asks, a rasp to her voice, her head thrown back against the wall in a way that _invites_ Lou’s lips to her jawline, not even pretending she’s had enough.

This is not a question of presence. Debbie’s not asking if Lou missed her in her life—missed talking, laughing, trying to outsmart each other; she already knows the answer. Lou couldn’t hide it even if she’d wanted to, and she doesn’t. No, Debbie’s asking if Lou missed her like _this_ —if Lou missed tasting her, smelling her, fucking her.

They’re not supposed to talk about that. Fucking doesn’t mean loving, but in some cases that’s only true if you work hard enough for it to be.

Lou doesn’t falter (she would have, years back, many many years back, before she learned that faltering will cost you everything you’ve worked for). Brushing her lips up and down Debbie’s jaw, up and down, she murmurs, “You’re always weird after you orgasm.”

Debbie threads her fingers in Lou’s hair, smiles. “It’s scientific,” she, too, knows what faltering means. “So, did you?” The question comes again, insistent, as Debbie brings Lou to her mouth, tries to kiss an honest answer out of her.

There is nowhere to run. Not with Debbie’s palm on the curve of her ass, not with Debbie’s hair brushing her shoulders, not with Debbie’s soft sigh against her lips and the soft scrap of fingers behind her ear.

Lou shifts her weight back to her right arm, brings her left to swipe a thumb over Debbie’s cheek. “Why are you asking?”

“It's nice to hear.”

Sliding her hand lower down Debbie’s body, Lou revels in the goosebumps that rise as her fingers ghost over Debbie’s still exposed stomach, the flex of her muscles. The hem of Debbie’s button-up brush against Lou’s forearm—a reminder that they are having this conversation in a bathroom stall. “Maybe after _I_ orgasm.”

Debbie’s hands are already on the buckle of Lou’s belt. “I can arrange that,” she says and takes Lou’s lower lip between her teeth. For a moment, Lou wants to let her. Wants to close her eyes and bury her head in the crook of Debbie’s neck, give up on holding her own weight. She’s still soaking wet from the sounds she ate up as Debbie made them.

But Debbie wanted quick, and it’s been more than five years since Debbie touched her, and Lou knows that when she does, there will be no running from making her _earn_ Lou’s orgasm.

She grabs Debbie’s wrist, stopping her. “No time,” she says like she’s winning an argument. With Debbie, it’s always an argument she has to win. Something she is proud she was able to withhold from her. Turning her arm so she can take a look at Debbie’s watch, she hums in disapproval. “I could have gotten you off with my mouth after all.”

Debbie rolls her eyes, twists her wrist free and checks the watch herself. “Only barely,” she determines. Lou huffs indignantly.

Then, Debbie’s straightens, starts buttoning her shirt back up, forcing Lou to take a step back. She puts her hands in her pockets, keeps her eyes on Debbie. With the moment now gone, she doesn’t need to answer Debbie’s question. The truth is, Debbie probably knows. There is an emptiness in keeping up a lie, but that is what their life is about.

Debbie’s looking down at her own working hands, making a quick, efficient job of it. Lou leans on the stall’s wall, never diverting her eyes sideways -- not as Debbie tucks her shirt back inside her jeans and zips up, not as she shakes her hair and tries to put loose fringes back in place.

And not as she suddenly exclaims, “Woo!” stretching her neck and her shoulders.

Lou lifts a single eyebrow.

“It’s been five years,” Debbie says, sounds more gratified than upset.

“I know,” Lou replies slowly.

“No, I mean, five years since I’ve fucked,” Debbie clarifies with no hint of hesitation.

Something catches in Lou’s throat before she forces it back down. Debbie can seem invincible, sometimes untouchable, and it’s true: she has no tells whatsoever. It’s only the fact Lou had known her in so many ways and for so many years that makes her almost turn gentle right now. But she knows Debbie would hate it, so she asks, nonchalant, “No sex in prison?”

“Not exactly my type of place for that.” As Lou gestures at the stall around them, Debbie shrugs. “Wouldn’t help my parole, either.”

Lou huffs. “I forgot. You can’t just fuck a person, you also need to fuck them over.”

“Screw or be screwed,” Debbie winks.

Lou shakes her head, looks down to hide the smile that’s creeping up on her. Too genuine of a smile. She wants to say something but can think of no words that would fit on her tongue. Except for, maybe, _perhaps it’s good I didn’t eat you out, because I wouldn’t have been able to stop there._

“Alright.” Debbie pushes herself off the door in a moment’s decision, opens it and begins to manhandle Lou out. “I need to pee and I would love to be on my own while doing it.”

“Glad to hear you’re enjoying your time out,” Lou finds it in herself to say, needs to have the last word in the conversation. Debbie ignores her, shuts the door on her.

Washing her hands, Lou looks in the mirror. She’s too flushed for her own liking, her hair curling up at the ends, her lipstick all around her lips and her eyeshadow in big black circles around her eyes. She inhales deeply, exhales, and strides out, grabs her helmet without saying a single word to anybody, without even making eye-contact, and leaves.

*

It doesn’t surprise Lou that Debbie’s strictly business after that. It doesn’t surprise Lou that they don’t talk about it, or what falling back into old habits means for them, or how maybe, possibly, she doesn’t know what she should do with that, because old habits mean less than what she wants and more than what she can handle. Lou lets it be because they have a job to run and she cannot screw that up, and Debbie lets it be because that’s what she’s like when they have a job to run—nothing else matters.

It _shouldn’t_ surprise Lou that some things don’t go away; like Debbie’s eyes on her from across the room, and their shared disregard of personal space whenever they move past each other, or how when they have a room all to themselves—rarely, these days, what with five other people living in Lou’s loft—Debbie opts to occupy the same space Lou does, and speak in the same soft way she does only when there’s just Lou around, and lets Lou idly touch her as they go over what the rest of the group is yet to know.

But it does catch Lou off guard, this whole deal, because while being strictly business, it reminds her that beyond the heist there’s time, and if they had already fallen back into old habits, what awaits beyond that time is less than she wants and more than she can handle.

“I found Yen,” Lou whispers late one night when everyone has gone to bed except for Nine, who’s pretending to not peer curiously at Lou and Deb as they sit too close together.

Debbie looks up at her and Lou swallows hard against the intensity of Debbie’s joy at the news. “Go on Wednesday?” she whispers back, and Lou nods, looks over to see Nine quickly shifting her eyes back to her computer. Debbie follows Lou’s gaze, and then there’s a hand on Lou’s thigh under the table.

“You’d tell me if it gets too much?”

“What?”

“The… drugs, the alcohol around here, everything. You’d tell me if…?”

“You know I’m fine.”

“Yeah, it’s just… nevermind.”

_What are we doing?_ Lou wants to ask, but then Debbie’s hand slides away, and she’s back to looking over her blueprints in silence, calculating the paths she needs to take to always be on camera.

And Lou _is_ fine. But there’s also a part of her that wants to tell Debbie she isn’t, and see what happens then. See what they are doing then.

She gets up to clear the empty cups around them, and when she passes Nine on her way to bed she momentarily stops, waits for Nine to raise her head, then says: “Long day tomorrow. You should sleep.”

“So’s your girl.”

“She’s not my girl.”

Nine shrugs. Lou’s starting to give up on telling her the same shit she tells everyone else.

*

“Deborah Ocean, you’re going to kiss me!” Lou declares as she walks through the door. She only notices that it isn’t Debbie she said that to after she put her coat and shoes in place, picks out a bottle of water from the fridge. Constance’s and Amita’s shared expressions of puzzlement leave Lou momentarily dumbfounded before she quirks an eyebrow at them and asks, “What are you doing here?”

Amita gives her a look that means: nobody but you and Debbie is supposed to know _that,_ while Constance misses it completely and shrugs as a defense against Lou’s accusation. No one was scheduled to be at the loft right now, as far as Lou was aware, but the only thing she can do is shake her head with a fond smile and inquire, simply, “Debbie?”

She catches Amita elbowing Constance before the girl can say what she had in mind, and then Amita nods towards the door to the dirty beach behind the loft.

“You’ve really swallowed your tongues,” she teases on her way back out and catches Amita elbowing Constance again. She can’t pay any mind to what these two are up to, or to what Constance thinks is going on between her and Debbie, so she gives them a salute, and walks out and to the beach, where she finds Debbie sitting on the cement stairs, staring at the horizon.

“We’ve got two rogues inside,” she jokes, but Debbie doesn’t even move to look at her.

“Got Yen on board,” she tries, but that doesn’t reach Debbie either.

Fiddling with the cap of her water bottle, Lou examines Debbie posture: her elbows on her knees, her back a perfect diagonal line, her hair flowing around her face in a way that only Debbie can make seem intentional and elegant, and her fingers interlocked, knuckles white as if she’s trying to stop her hands from doing something.

Lou’s tone shifts completely, concern taking over. “Hey,” she says, comes to sit right beside Debbie, shoulders touching. She follows Debbie’s gaze, but nothing is there besides the far away line of the ocean that she used to think, back in Australia, was the edge of the earth.

“Something’s wrong. You wanna tell me?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Ruminating.”

Lou glances at Debbie’s face from the corner of her eye, gives up on trying to keep her hair in place. She wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what’s going on with Debbie based on her expression right now—there’s something scarily normal about it, but in combination with Debbie’s white knuckles and her rigid spine, Lou can’t trust her face.

“Wanna tell me about that?” she prods as gently as she can.

For long minutes, Lou is convinced she’s not going to get even a no. She had already resigned herself to sitting quietly next to Debbie, both of them staring at the ocean when Debbie speaks.

“You wrote me a letter. When Danny…”

There weren’t a lot of times in their life when Lou had observed Debbie struggling with words. She’s never gotten used to that.

“I knew you’d get it late but, you know, prison official shouldn’t have been the one to tell you.”

Debbie hands twitch, her thumb scratching at the back of her palm. “I did get it late. Two weeks late.”

“That much?”

“They don’t give you letters in solitary.”

“What did you do?”

“Pissed off a few people during the years. Not everybody likes me when I take charge.”

Lou knows that. It’s still hard to swallow. “You could have fucked your parole up.” Her voice is strained. She’s trying not to be angry, but the thought of Debbie serving her full sentence makes her blood boil. If she’d done anything reckless right before the hearing because of Danny, and wouldn’t have gotten out because of it, Lou would have personally come after her.

But Debbie shakes her head, the first movement she’s made since Lou had found her here. “No, I couldn’t. I, well, nobody messes with an Ocean when there’s someone out there who can mess with them back. At least, the smart people don’t.”

Pieces are starting to fall in place, and Lou can’t bring herself to look. “You had Danny.”

“Yeah. And then I didn’t”

Lou screws the cap on her bottle open and shut, open and shut. “How did you find out?”

“One night,” the word shake out of Debbie alongside her breath. “I woke up with a shiv against my throat, and my cellmate above me telling me I could forget about my sweet, sweet parole, because my big brother was toast, and she was coming for me.”

“Did she…?”

“No. I pushed her off. We swung a few punches. They found her shiv, we both went into solitary. They made the news official, but until they were sure nobody was going to fuck me over they kept me in.”

When Lou finally musters the courage to turn her head, something about Debbie’s exterior cracks. Lou puts the bottle down, faces Debbie with her whole body, brings her hand up to uselessly tuck Debbie’s hair behind her ear. “Deb…”

Debbie closes her eyes. “Don’t do that.”

“Okay,” Lou nods. “I won’t.”

It’s so unlike Debbie to talk about these things that Lou’s afraid any action she might take will scare Debbie off. But Debbie doesn’t object to Lou’s fingers in her hair, so that’s how they sit, listening to the breaking waves, and saying nothing more.

This is different. This isn’t what they’ve become, it is _them_. It’s Debbie rambling about urban legends while Lou braided her hair because she got stressed out after the tenth time they went over their plan; it’s Debbie lying with her back to Lou, pressed against Lou’s chest, idly running her fingers over Lou’s arms while listening to Lou tell her about that thing she read in one of her food magazines; it’s sharing childhood stories, or talking through their youth and growing up. It is the intimacy they’ve unintentionally built and made them both stay, and Lou thinks, suddenly, that falling into old habits might not be the worst possible thing they can do.

It might just be _them_ , working again.

She leans in on an instinct, presses a kiss to Debbie’s forehead, untangles Debbie’s iron grip on her own hands and wraps long fingers around her palm.

“My door’s always open,” she murmurs, and Debbie inhales, exhales, holds Lou’s hand.

*

She wasn’t sure Debbie would take her up on that offer. But while Lou’s reading Calvino’s _Invisible Cities_ , there’s a soft knock on her door, and without waiting for an answer Debbie walks inside, her hands in her pockets, looking around at the scattered stuff in Lou’s room. Lou leaves the book open against her knees but stops reading, watches as Debbie picks random objects up and examines them.

“It’s a mess,” Lou admits. Debbie hums; a smile is dancing across her face, flickering on and off.

“Seems like everything has its place.” Lou follows her with her eyes as she crouches down, runs her fingers over the books stacked up around the edges of the walls, on the floor.

She doesn’t really know what to say to that. “Yeah, well,”

Pushing herself back on her feet, Debbie turns to fully face Lou, eyeing the book in her lap. She gestures to it with her chin, “Whatcha reading?”

Lou looks down to the page she’s at, “ _‘There is still one of which you never speak,’_ ” she reads, intones her words carefully. “ _Marco Polo bowed his head. ‘Venice,’ The Khan said,_ ” waits a beat. _“Marco smiled. ‘What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?’_ ”

“ _And yet_ ,” Debbie’s voice comes, low and shy. “ _I have never heard you mention that name._ ”

Lou looks up, cannot contain the warmth she feels spreading over her face, transforming her expression. “ _Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice,_ ” she finishes. Once upon a time, she had read this book to Debbie, who wanted stories on a sleepless night. Debbie fell asleep clutching at Lou, and Lou fell asleep with the book open on her chest.

She wasn’t sure that Debbie remembered, definitely didn’t think she remembered as well as she does. While Debbie turns away, looks down to the floor, Lou’s unable to tear her eyes away from her.

“You really haven’t changed at all,” Debbie says, and she sounds like it’s upsetting her, troubling her. Her eyes search for something to occupy herself with on the floor.

Lou swallows, can’t find words. There’s something in her that was irrecoverably changed the day Debbie left, and hasn’t stopped changing since then. She feels it every time she looks at Debbie now, feels it trying to shift back to what it used to be, but every single time it fails. She might read the same book seven times, and she might still hate cherry tomatoes, but Lou has changed so much she sometimes feels unrecognizable to herself, and Debbie can’t see it, can she? Debbie thinks that time didn’t mess with Lou like it messed with her. That she didn’t mess Lou up like she messed herself up.

“I stopped smoking,” she finally manages to let out, voice cracking at the edges of the words, breaking the joke down to pieces. Debbie nods, absentminded.

The silence stretches, and outside the sun sets further down, darkening the room. Lou closes the book gently and lays it on her bedside table. She wants to ask Debbie what made her come, but she doesn’t want to remind Debbie that she had come. So she simply watches Debbie, who seems intent on learning the layout of Lou’s room by heart.

They let the night fall.

_Are you coming to bed?_ Lou wants to ask. _Are you staying the night?_

But the moment is disturbed before Lou can disturb it herself.

Debbie chuckles, lifts something off the corner of a shelf. Lou can’t see what it is until Debbie comes closer to her, lets it dangle off her finger. “Really?” she asks with a raised eyebrow, holding the handcuffs out towards Lou. Lou puts on a smirk, shrugs and shuts the book, puts it away.

“If I remember correctly, you can get out of these in less than a minute. What use is that?”

“Well, they weren’t for _me_ ,” Lou scoffs. “You know I don’t let people tie me up.”

She turns to light up her bedside lamp, a deep yellow spreading across the room, its edges reaching over to Debbie. When Lou turns back to her, she’s standing, frozen, the handcuffs still dangling this way and that over her finger, staring at Lou with an unblinking, blank expression.

Lou’s not sure what she did wrong, what the problem was with what she had just said. She crosses her legs, leans forwards, trying to reach out to Debbie, trying to communicate her question with her body, but Debbie’s unmoving.

Until, finally, with a strained voice, she speaks, “I didn’t know that, actually.”

If she’d forgotten, Lou knows Debbie would never let it go; she would agonize over it like not holding every single thing she had ever learned about Lou in that compartmentalized mind of hers, which probably have a box for every aspect of her life, is a personal failure, and Debbie cannot stand personal failures. But that’s not the kind of look Debbie’s giving her right now. It’s a look that has no shame in it, but far too much unease.

Lou’s certain they had this conversation already, but—

“You let me tie you up,” Debbie’s voice is barely audible now.

_Oh._

So, they never talked about that, did they? Maybe Lou just assumed Debbie simply knew because it was so blindingly obvious.

“You’re different,” she says, determined but weak, unable to keep her heart out of her words. “It’s different.”

She holds her breath. Maybe she never did assume anything, maybe she had just pretended that it didn’t matter because talking about it with Debbie -- that frightened her, and Lou’s a coward when she thinks she might feel vulnerable. And Debbie makes it impossible to not feel vulnerable.

For a brief, far too long a moment, Lou’s certain Debbie’s gonna walk out of her room. Certain that she had now reminded Debbie of where she’s standing, and that inevitably should make her go somewhere else.

But Debbie drops the handcuffs and slowly makes her way over to Lou’s bed. “How so?” she asks, deep and dangerously raw.

Lou can’t say it. Can’t say that when Debbie did it for the first time, it wasn’t the immobility that turned her on, it was that knowledge, simple and undeniable, almost like a prophecy so powerful it took over Lou’s entire body: Debbie wouldn’t hurt her.

Can’t say she hates loss of control, from depending on others for means of transportation to being held down, but when she tried to move her hands to touch Debbie and couldn’t, and there were no panic alarms, and there was nothing but want, and there was nothing but Debbie in her head— _that’s_ different. _That’s_ how you’re different.

“Come here,” she rasps as Debbie stops at the side of her bed. Debbie puts one knee on the mattress, bends down as Lou stretches towards her, kisses Lou with one hand on her cheek and one hand in her hair, cradling her head.

“Closer,” Lou says into the kiss, pulls Debbie down with her as she lies back, and Debbie stops her fall with a hand, leaning over Lou, too far still. “Closer,” Lou insists, and Debbie lowers herself gently, tangles her limbs with Lou’s, kisses Lou deeply.

Lou brings a hand to Debbie’s jaw, tilts her head for a better angle. She closes her eyes and sinks deeper into the mattress as Debbie relaxes above her. They spend long moments lost like that—coming up for air and diving back in, breathing hotly against each other’s cheeks. Debbie lies down flush against Lou, her arms bracketing Lou’s head, leaning on her elbows.

It takes Lou’s mind far too long to comprehend it when Debbie stops kissing her, and when she forces her heavy lids up, she finds Debbie’s solemn expression impossible to look at, the way her fingers play softly with her hair unbearable; she tugs at her shirt collar, whispers, “Closer,” and Debbie ducks her head with a shaky inhale-exhale to lock their lips together again.

There’s no rush, but it’s as urgent as it gets. Lou flips them to lie on their sides, face to face, so she can slip a hand under Debbie’s shirt, feel Debbie lean towards the touch, feel Debbie’s muscles ripple underneath her fingers. She dips her thumb teasingly into Debbie’s belly-button, runs it down to the waistband of her pajama pants, and Debbie turns her face into the pillow, panting. Lou takes the opportunity to bury her face in the crook of Debbie’s neck, pepper it with kisses.

She hooks her left leg over Debbie’s, wraps two arms around her back and holds her as her lips slide along Debbie’s neck. _You’re my Venice,_ she thinks. _Stay,_ she thinks.

“Tie me up,” she says. Debbie’s hand searches for something unknown on Lou’s body. She pushes Lou slightly further so she can look her in the eyes, says her name like a psalm. “Tie me up,” Lou repeats.

“Are you proving a point?” Debbie whispers, sounds just a bit stern, more scared than anything else.

“No,” Lou answers simply, shakes her head along to it. She presses a kiss to Debbie’s cheek. “I want you to tie me up.”

So Debbie does.

Above Lou's head, carefully, adamantly, her fingers running over the edges of the scarf she wrapped around Lou's wrists, her eyes examining Lou's face. "Okay?" she asks when she's done, bringing her fingers to brush Lou's fringe off her eyes. Lou tests the bindings, looking into Debbie's eyes, and she feels so overwhelmingly okay that all she can do is close her eyes and nod. It is impossible to doubt Debbie, this Debbie, here. This is the only place they were always sure they were doing right by each other in. This is how they talk, _really_ talk, with their hands and mouths pressed to the other's skin.

She hears Debbie shift, sheets rustling, then her mouth is on Lou—her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth, sliding over the line of her jaw, right below her ear, down to her neck…

Debbie’s hand is traveling across her torso, making Lou shift slightly here and there to get closer to her touch; her lips are warm and open against Lou’s pulse point.

“Where do you want me?” she asks, and God, _fuck_ , she hadn’t heard Debbie’s voice so low in years. It’s ridiculous that Debbie should ask this question, that Lou should be the one requesting and Debbie shouldn’t be the one demanding, right now; but this is them—ridiculous and going about everything backward. Backward works for them.

Lou’s breathless already, and she doesn’t know what to say except for, “Right here.” She can’t fathom not having Debbie’s face inches from hers, Debbie’s presence loud and clear and undeniable. She hopes that Debbie doesn’t need more than that, still, to understand. She hopes the years did not break them here as well.

“Right here,” Debbie repeats in a whisper, brings her mouth back to Lou’s, and Lou arches her back as Debbie’s tongue slides against her bottom lip and Debbie’s hand trails down her stomach, her body pressing as close as possible to Lou’s side. Lou wants to reach out and touch, she does, desperately, because Debbie does understand, still, and she whines, soft, because she can’t, and yet it feels impossibly good to be here. To have Debbie _right here_.

She’s wet, getting even wetter as Debbie dips her fingers in, brushing them up and down and up and down until Lou’s squirming and mumbling out, _God, Deb, please, please_ into Debbie’s mouth.

Debbie shifts between her thighs, spreading her legs wider, and Lou hooks one leg around her waist, turns her head to kiss Debbie’s temple as Debbie moves to kiss under her jaw, a finger teasing Lou’s entrance, pushing in too little and too slow.

Lou grinds down, trying to get Debbie to move the way she wants her to, tightens her leg’s grip on Debbie’s waist. They talk with their hands and their mouths on each other’s skin, but right now Lou can only use her words, and it’s a different kind of vulnerability that comes with being restrained—not only powerless, but also made to communicate, and Lou finds herself doing it without any inhibitions, muscle memory foregoing all the fears she had accumulated during the years apart.

“Fuck me, come on, fuck me, Deb, please, fuck me,” and as Debbie does, two fingers, three, picking up the pace, reaching deeper, nibbling at Lou’s favorite spot under her jaw. “Right here. Right here.”

She comes with a soft moan in Debbie’s ear, Debbie sucking a mark on her skin, panting and restlessly shifting her hips to try and grind down on _something_ , and Lou gasps “enough” when it gets too much, rubs her nose against Debbie’s cheek until Debbie brings their mouths back together, pulls her fingers out and straddles Lou’s thigh.

“You…” she marvels as she rubs her cunt fast and messy over Lou, cupping Lou’s face and pulling back enough to look into her eyes. “You…”

She can’t finish the thought, Lou sees it in her eyes, glazed and wide and almost rolling back in her head but she _looks_ into Lou’s and Lou gets it, gets why it’s impossible to speak. She tumbles over the edge in a burst of pleasure that Lou watches playing over her face, leans back down to kiss it into Lou’s mouth, asks, in the height of it, “did you miss me?” And Lou can’t shrug it off now, can’t, for the life of her, be angry at Debbie now.

“I did,” she lets tumble out like Debbie’s orgasm, and, “Stay.”

Debbie shakes, and shakes, and shakes, and says, “Okay,” and again, “Okay.”

She releases Lou’s hands before her aftershocks subside, falls over Lou while Lou brings her arms to wrap around her.

She could ask Debbie the same thing, could ask her for the same admission that things have changed, and are changing, and they are right here lying together because they are different now than they were before, but Lou doesn’t need to hear it. She just needs Debbie to stay.

Debbie inhales, exhales, a palm to Lou’s cheek, her forehead against Lou’s breastbone, and Lou shuts her eyes and breathes deep and thinks: _okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a heads up that i am about to start my semester so the next update might take a while as well...sorry about that


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hello y'all! after giving it some thought, i have decided to divide what was intended to be chapter 3 into chapter 3 + 4. so here is 3, sooner than i expected i would actually finish it. hope you enjoy <3
> 
> also, i want to say a huge huge huge thank you to Netterz on here for a wonderful beta job! she touched-up the first two chapters as well so now they look much better, and edited this chapter wonderfully <3
> 
> there are some sentences in German, and there are translations in the footnotes. it is very much intended that you will understand them while Lou doesn't.
> 
> love and comments are, as always, appriciated <3

Lou stirs, half-asleep, barely registers the warm body that is pressed against her chest, snuggled between her arms, hair in her face. She presses her nose firmly against the nape of it, nuzzling for long moments, uncaring of anything but the firmness of that body's presence, tightening her grip on its waist. As consciousness slowly takes over her, a familiar sensation joins it—affection, so strong Lou feels like she might be choking on it.

"Deb," slips out of her mouth before she's fully awake, and she kisses the back of Debbie's neck where the line of her hair rests upon a vertebra. It's barely light outside, and their alarm has yet to go off, but waking up like this—Lou doesn't mind sleep taken away from her.

Debbie sighs, shifts closer to Lou's body. "What time is it?" she mumbles, almost indecipherable, and yet, Lou expected a much less communicative partner.

"Early enough."

Lou's hand finds its way under Debbie's shirt, fingers splayed over her stomach while her mouth takes the downward path to Debbie's shoulder blade. Debbie hums, covers Lou's palm with her own, ducks her head and lets her hair fall over her own face.

"You're a furnace, you know that?" she asks. Lou scrapes her teeth lightly where she just kissed her.

"Too hot?"

"No, perfect."

A twist and a push, and Debbie's facing Lou, who’s blinking her eyes open to the sight of her—eyes bleary and face soft, smiling in a way that Lou's not sure she is aware of. She grabs Lou's hand, brings it up to kiss her knuckles. "How early, exactly?" she questions, eyes leveled with Lou's. Lou scoots closer, rubbing their feet together.

"Why?"

"Because we have a bunch of criminals to give instructions to, and I need to look sharp."

"And here I was, thinking you were wondering if I had enough time to give you a good morning orgasm."

Debbie does laugh, though she's pulling away from Lou with a dry kiss to the corner of her mouth. "I'm serious. I need to get up."

"It's barely sunrise," Lou protests. She wasn't even serious about the orgasm, (well, not _entirely_ ). She just wants Debbie in her bed with her.

"Barely sunrise is as good a time as any."

Debbie rolls over, sits up with her back to Lou and stretches. Her hair's more of a mess than usual, Lou notes, and there's a list of _Blondie_ tour-dates on the back of her t-shirt, which means it's an old one of Lou's. Her heart skips a bit at that, and she reaches out, grabs the hem of the shirt, unwilling to let Debbie get away from her so quickly. Last night washes over her like a tide reaching its peak—the way Debbie clung to her _after_ , rubbed her wrists reverently and kissed her, said nothing and everything that Lou needed her to, right then, all at once. She doesn't remember when Debbie picked up her shirt, just like she doesn't remember when exactly they ended up cuddled close like a couple of teenagers. The scent of sweat and sex lingers, and Lou's still completely naked, her skin overheated in the best possible way. She can't give this up just yet—this intimacy she spent six years craving and unable to find.

Debbie looks over her shoulder. Though relaxed and more than a little content, she still seems tired. Lou doesn't ask how much of the night she spent actually sleeping; it's not the sort of conversation that she wants to open up so soon and so suddenly. Debbie has told her enough for Lou to know that it wouldn't be an answer she likes, nor a conversation Debbie would willingly indulge in after hammering down some of the bricks in her walls. She knows she is going to have to give Debbie time. She knows that the only reason it is easy right now is because it's new and old all at once, and that is enough to distract from the future. She tugs at the shirt Debbie's still wearing and says, "Half an hour. Until the alarm goes off."

A twist and a pull, and with an overtly fake sigh, Debbie's back in her arms. She settles with an arm between her head and the pillow, a palm to Lou's cheek, Lou's arm slung over her waist, looking into Lou's eyes and speaking softly.

"Begging doesn't suit you."

"That's not what you thought last night."

Debbie inhales sharply, like she is just remembering. She says nothing further on the subject, though—just lies next to Lou, running a thumb over her jaw. After long moments she admits, "This is nice."

Lou hums her agreement, pulling Debbie a little bit closer and closes her eyes as comfortable silence settles around them. She will not fall asleep, neither will Debbie, she knows; but they can rest.

"I dreamed about this," Debbie whispers, and half an hour later, both their phones beep and buzz to wake them up.

They shower separately in Lou's en-suite—Debbie brushing her teeth while Lou rinses her hair, Lou putting her pajamas back on, not yet ready to give up that leisure, while Debbie just stands for long minutes under the stream of hot water. Lou watches her as she fixes her own hair in the mirror. Debbie's eyes shut and her head thrown back, hands preventing water from falling in her eyes, and Lou wonders what else Debbie dreamt about while in jail, and how many of those things she can provide for her. A Homecoming Heist, a bed to feel warm in, a shower to enjoy, sex and security and a person to—

 _Love her_ , Lou thinks, because maybe it's time.

Debbie opens her eyes to catch Lou staring, considers her with a quirked lip and runs a hand down her body, letting half of her hair fall, wet and heavy, and Lou feels as if nothing, when they're together, is more than anything they can possibly do.

"I have to go change," Debbie tells her regretfully, puts Lou's sleeping mask over Lou's forehead with an amused smile as Lou finishes buttoning up her own shirt. She's back in Lou's _Blondie_ t-shirt, but with an added pair of sweatpants she had dug out of Lou's closet as well. She looks about twenty years younger, like they have just met, like this is the first night they have ever spent together. "Do you sleep with this on?" Debbie adds, and Lou just shakes her head—a story for another time.

"Sneaking out of my bedroom like a well-kept secret, hmm?" she teases, fixing the mask so it won't interrupt her eyesight.

Instead of coming up with a retort, Debbie plants a kiss to Lou's cheek. "You look good. Been wanting to tell you."

"You can always tell me that."

Debbie pulls back, gives Lou an up-and-down. "You really do."

"You're not so bad yourself, right now."

Laughing skeptically, Debbie turns her back to Lou, looking around the room to see if there's anything she needs to take with her. "Really? With these?"

"Oh, absolutely."

Before they can part ways, though, there's a knock on the door.

"Debs," Tammy's voice comes through, and Debbie freezes in her spot.

 _So, we're really not talking about this,_ Lou figures, and by the time she finishes the thought, Debbie has already cracked the door open.

Lou catches Tammy's shit-eating grin. "The kids are ready," she tells them both, shifting her eyes from one to the other. "Thought I should let you know." Debbie nods, too self-conscious to do anything else, it seems, and Lou's stuck in her place, unsure of what Debbie would rather her do—disappear or make what they've been doing here even more clear by being close.

"How did you know I was here?" Debbie sounds like she did that time they climbed into Tammy's truck.

"You weren't exactly discreet."

At that, even Lou's face turns heated.

"O…kay. Just—give us a few."

Tammy walks away with a wink in Lou's direction, and Debbie shuts the door behind her. She keeps her back to Lou, paces around in no particular direction, her hands twitching at her sides.

"Deb," Lou tries. When that doesn't work, she comes closer, closer, until Debbie's within reach, and the moment her hand lands on Debbie's shoulder, Debbie turns around. Lou's not sure what she's fearing, but it is evident enough that Debbie's afraid. She splays her fingers over Debbie's neck in that way she remembers calms Debbie down, says, "We don't have to say anything."

Nodding, distracted, Debbie diverts her eyes away from Lou's face.

"If you don't want them to—"

"It's not that."

"Whatever it is, we don't have to say anything."

Finally, Debbie looks at her. Lou can't help herself, pulls her in, and Debbie kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her.

*

In the living room Lou lets Debbie take the lead on _them_ , while she stands in front of the projector and talks about bathroom laws in the state of New York. Nothing's different, not to anyone else's sight, though Lou can sense the questions that are bubbling inside of them—but to her, everything's different; every time Debbie glances over, Lou knows.

She cannot unknow.

*

 

There's stillness to Debbie that Lou wasn't exactly expecting, but then, she doesn't know what exactly she _was_ expecting. The crew's all scattered out and about for the day—Nine-Ball working on the camera angles, Amita with the jewels, Rose with Daphne, Tammy at Vogue, Constance at a recon around the Met—and Debbie sits on the stage next to the Met model, legs crossed, alone with Lou, who’s pacing in front of her in an attempt to think better, once again. Debbie, who took her up on her offer more broadly than Lou thought she would, says nothing even now, and it's okay, Lou thinks, because she promised, and because they need to work. Need to perfect their own secret part of Debbie's plan. Debbie has always been the type to focus intently on what's at hand, and currently what's at hand is not _them_ , but rather tenths of European jewels.

The stillness, though,; that is still bothering Lou. Debbie seems rigid, verging on uncomfortable; seems like she's trying and failing and trying harder to not move. L, like she's forcing herself, more than ever before, to not touch Lou. So Lou paces, hands in the pockets of her leather pants, and tries not to wonder whether or not Debbie thinks coming to her room was a mistake.

"You're sure the kid toy is our best option?" Debbie wonders, eyes scanning the tiny rooms in the model.

"Well, it's our most fun option," Lou counters, tries and fails and tries harder to lighten the mood.

Debbie's lips quiver into a smile. "I need you to answer this seriously."

Determined and sure, Lou does: "Yes."

"And you'll pay—"

"Cash at the store. We've been doing this for decades, Deb. What's with the one-o-one lessons?"

"It has to work."

"And it does. It will. Go over it with me one more time."

"Twenty thirty-five, doors sealed," Debbie begins, fingers moving over the model, following her words. "Twenty forty, cameras disrupted. You have twenty-five minutes from then on. Yen goes over the lasers, takes off the pieces and attaches them to the submarine, which you drive under the lasers to collect the jewels. Should be about a minute fifteen seconds per piece, including bagging. As for me, I'm going for The Chewbacca—"

"You _are_ incredibly entertaining when you do that, by the way," Lou can't help but interject as she passes by Debbie, turns on her heels, passes by Debbie again. When Debbie continues, she speaks slower, as if pointedly trying to keep Lou focused.

"Making sure nobody comes in to catch you with your hand in the cookie jar."

"Yes, thank you. Isn't it called The Lawyer?"

"No, The Lawyer _twists_ a situation, it doesn't derail it."

"I thought that was The George W. Bush."

As sudden as Debbie's movement is, what's most surprising about it is what she reaches for—Lou's forearm, grabbing it just as Lou passes by her again, saying, "stop," without looking up from the model.

Lou does, looks down at Debbie's slightly furrowed brows. "What?"

"Nothing, just," Debbie closes her eyes briefly, sighs, brings her eyes to meet Lou's gaze as she tightens her grip. "Twenty-five minutes pass," she continues, calmer, softer. "Necklace retrieved, doors unsealed, we're out."

Lou swallows. "Plain and simple."

"Come here," Debbie whispers, and sudden as her previous move untangles her legs and makes room for Lou in between them. Sitting with her back pressed to Debbie's chest, Debbie's legs bracketing her, Lou leans her head backwards on Debbie's shoulder and closes her eyes. A shiver makes its way along her spine as Debbie closes her arms around her torso and buries her head in the crook of her neck.

"You're nervous," Lou observes.

"It has to work," Debbie repeats, offers nothing more than that. It is more than she will offer anybody else, Lou knows. An admission that five years, eight months, twelve days of planning aren't enough to stop a person from not truly _knowing_ , and Debbie might be a perfect master planer, but she is also a person.

"It will," she repeats, too, and then: "You told me it will, and you would never lie."

Debbie shakes slightly with laughter. "Tell me again," she sighs, so Lou does. Goes over the whole plan from the very beginning to the very end, from the Toussaint to the European jewels, one more time, in minute details—every turn explained, all people accounted for, every day counted; takes five, ten, fifteen minutes to talk it over slowly while drawing shapes on the inside of Debbie's palm; naming rooms, routes, calculating angles.

"I meet you on the corner of eighty-second and third, and we come here, bathed in glory," she finishes, head turned towards Debbie, lips already parted as Debbie brings her mouth to hers for a chaste kiss.

 _Is this the only thing you're nervous about?_ Lou wants to ask. Something in her is scared to death of demanding too much, scared of Debbie running off. Something in her wants to push, like she'd never done before, the kind of push that might send them both reeling, not the kind of push they're used to with each other—not the kind of push that makes them work as well as they do. Something in her wants this bliss, but something in her wants answers.

_Take is easy_ , she tells herself and presses a chaste kiss of her own back. _You've got time_ , she tells herself and burrows deeper into Debbie's embrace. _Slow._

"Tammy's going to have a field day distributing the pieces," she jokes, knowing full well that Debbie and she are going to get a lecture about this sort of surprises.

"And I'm going to have a headache handling all the accounts," Debbie retorts. "We all make sacrifices."

"Such hardships."

"You have any advice for me, as the business owner among us?"

"Read the small letters."

"Hmm," Debbie hums, leans in for another kiss. "You're being very useful."

She lets herself spend a moment too long lost in Debbie's eyes—their warm brown; the wrinkles around the corners that are as etched in her memory as they are in Debbie's face; the slow, soothing blink right before Debbie closes her eyes. It's quiet now, still in an entirely different way—their chests rising and falling in a steady rhythm of breath, but otherwise, bodies intertwined and fixed.

"You know," Lou says, desperate, suddenly, for something that would prevent her from slipping and telling Debbie something they might both not want out. "You've never told me where you picked your German up."

There's a smile creeping up Debbie's face. "Really? Never?"

"Probably the only thing about you that I don't know."

"I hope that I can still surprise you."

"Honey, there hasn’t been wasn't a day in our life that you did not surprise me."

Tightening her grip around Lou, Debbie seems content not talking. Lou turns her head up to the ceiling and closes her eyes once again, waits for a beat, another. She swallows as Debbie ghosts her fingers up and down her forearm. Debbie's still silent. It's Lou who breaks first.

"So, what's the story?"

It takes another moment for Debbie to come out of her trance. “You know aunt Helga? I think… You’ve probably heard about her. She had that Van Gogh the Nazi's stole? The one the world is sure was burnt during the war? Danny always talked about it.”

“Right. The one who conned Hitler.”

“Well, not _Hitler_ …”

“Yeah. I remember her.”

Lou remembered every legend and story about Debbie's family. She used to listen intently whenever Debbie provided them, used to sit with Debbie and Danny and Rusty and Tess and let the pair of siblings run wild with their history. She spent six years believing these were the best days of her life—now she thinks she might have been wrong. Now she thinks there might be better days yet to come.

Debbie sighs. "It's not an entirely exciting story," she apologizes, but Lou doesn't care. "Spent some years with her growing up. She refused to speak anything but German with me, so I had to learn. Nothing like where I picked up my French.”

“Oh, I know _that_ story.” She still gets a hell of a laugh imagining Debbie trying to con her way through La Cordon Bleu with _her_ culinary skills. She smiles, wide and toothy, and Debbie pinches the side of her ribs. "When was that?"

“I think I was ten. Probably ten. My father was already using Danny, but he thought I’d be burdening them. Too old to ask nothing and too young and stupid to help. She lived on some farm in Virginia. Did my schoolwork with her, as well.”

Lou has learned, over the years, to handle the darker parts of Debbie's childhood, which Debbie occasionally brings up so casually, just like Debbie, in turn, has learned to deal with the times Lou would talk about running away from an abusive family at fifteen and ending up doing anything for heroine at seventeen as if it didn't matter anymore. It's still an instinctive reaction, though—intertwining her fingers with Debbie's in an attempt to ground them both in this moment, now, sitting together.

She's about to ask another technical question, or maybe make a remark about Virginia, but Debbie begins speaking in German before Lou can even open her mouth.

"Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich weiß, wie ich das wieder mit dir machen soll." [1]

Lou chuckles. "You do remember that I don't speak German at all, right?"

Debbie ignores that; only brings her lips to Lou's cheek and continues as if nothing is unusual, as if Lou absolutely knows what's going on. "Ich hasse es, dass ich gegangen bin.”[2]

Her tone is low and inviting, and Lou never found any language, even French, particularly sexy, but Debbie has a talent for making her love anything.

"Ich bereue nie was, aber ich hasse es, dass ich gegangen bin,”[3]she says, scrapes her teeth behind Lou's ear and nuzzles her nose under her jaw.

"Okay, now you're just teasing." Lou tilts her head to give Debbie better access, and Debbie jumps on the opportunity without hesitation. Her lips trail down to Lou's shoulder, where she plants a warm kiss.

"Ich weiß, dass ich schummle. Tut mir Leid. Und ich hab es ernst gemeint, als ich dir gesagt hab, dass ich dich jeden Schritt des Weges unterstützen werde.”[4]

Lou clutches at Debbie's hand. She should mind not knowing what Debbie's telling her more, is usually frustrated by not understanding a conversation—but something in the way Debbie holds her vanishes all sorts of uncomfortable thoughts away. She listens and lets herself be carried away by nonsensicality.

"Du wirst mich sehr bald wieder hassen.”[5]

Debbie's hands snake around her torso, and Lou slides lower where she sits, leaning farther back, sighs. "You really are something."

"Dieses Mal geh ich nicht. Das solltest du wissen. Das kann ich dir nicht sagen."[6]

With that, Debbie searches for Lou's mouth, finds it with great difficulty as Lou's too lost to realize that's what she’s looking for, and kisses the moan off Lou's lips as she dips her hand under Lou's shirt, trails up to cup her breast.

"Bed," Lou gasps, forces Debbie to untangle. "Bed," she repeats, pulls Debbie up with her and towards her bedroom. Debbie doesn't linger far behind, hands always on Lou's body as they make their way. Lou pins her to the mattress.

"What was that?" she asks, breathless, mouth following her fingers as she unbuttons Debbie's shirt. Debbie cards her hands through Lou's hair, arches slightly off the bed.

"Practice," she answers, just as breathless as Lou, beaming at Lou when she looks under her lashes to see.

Lou kisses her stomach and giggles.

*

 

It's that joyous night of laughter that turned into gasps into moans into Lou's name tumbling off Debbie's lips, into Debbie's name breathed hotly in her ear—it's that _happiness_ that makes it hard to comprehend, more than it would have been otherwise. She doesn't feel foolish, just blind, just hurt, and when she walked into the loft and Constance said, "Yo, Kluger's boy toy is fucking _hot_ ," she rolled her eyes before taking a seat in front of the chart and catching the name that for more than six years made her grit her teeth.

And here it is again.

She knows to find Debbie by the beach because she knows Debbie planned this, and if Debbie planned this she knew, with Lou's lips pressed against her skin she knew Lou will see this, and this is what Debbie does now—makes mistakes and contemplated them by the beach.

"We need to talk."

And so they do, and Lou's desperate to understand why Debbie needs to have him involved so badly that she will go behind her back until the moment Lou can't undo what she's done, and though Debbie's resolve crumbles and her lies turn into defenses, Lou's struggling to look in her eyes—but she can't look away.

"You should have told me," Lou eventually says, firm but after everything she can't stop the hurt from dripping in.

"You would have stopped it."

"Exactly."

They both know this isn't about risking the job.

Debbie says nothing more than that, her eyes still pleading Lou to understand but her words still meaning _I can't help it._

"You know what," Lou lets anger get the better of her, "I don't know why I thought we were a good idea."

She turns away before she can see Debbie's reaction.

By the time Debbie follows her back to the apartment, Lous already closed herself behind a door in the lower-floor bathroom. _Hiding?_ Debbie would ask disapprovingly if it were anybody else whom Lou walked away from. _I’ve said what I had to say_ , Lou would answer, and Debbie would roll her eyes, pull her in by the wrist, and say: _well if you ever run out of words for me, I’ll know where to look._

Evidently, Debbie doesn’t.

“Lou?” she asks the crew, quick and exasperated. Lou can imagine their faces after she stormed past them without a word, a nod. They say nothing. Lou's not even certain they know where exactly she went.

Except for Tammy, whose voice is dangerously steady when she asks, but in a way that implies a no would be unacceptable: “Can we talk?”

“No, I—” Debbie begins, but she is cut off by something, sighs, resigned, then says, “Right. It’s that kind of day.”

Lou can hear Constance’s whistle. “The grown-ups are fighting.”

Can hear Nine-Ball’s snort. “ _You’re_ a grown-up.”

“That’s debatable,” Amita chimes in.

It sounds like Constance threw something at her, but then Lou stops listening to them, because Tammy and Debbie are right around the corner, and Lou can hear them clearly -- too clearly, and she can’t walk out.

“What’s going on?” Tammy asks.

“Ask Lou.”

“I’m sorry, I thought I left my children at home.”

Silence.

“Is this about Claude?” Tammy doesn’t shy away from anything, ever. Lou appreciates her for that, just not right now. She can’t hear another fucking word about Claude right now, which is why she’s hiding in the bathroom to begin with, and Tammy should have _noticed that_.

“Why would it be about Claude?”

Lou rolls her eyes. _Real smooth, Deborah._

“Because you never told me what exactly happened between you and Lou. Ever. Which, I gotta say, you’re very bad at hiding.”

“You, too? With that thing?” She groans, then mimics Lou almost perfectly: “ _You’ve got a tell when you want to fuck_.”

Tammy sounds like she’s biting off a laugh. “First of all, you do. But no, no,” she snaps back to seriousness. “I’m talking much more than a fuck.”

Lou’s heart’s hammering, now, like it was brought back to life. She swallows down her words, in bitter taste.

It takes far too long for Debbie to say, “The job’s gonna get done.” She sounds defensive, tired. Lou can’t blame her, when she’s got two people asking if she’s gonna screw the job up in the span of twenty minutes. Lou can’t blame herself, either. She’s just as tired as Debbie.

“Oh, I know. I’m not worried about the job.”

“Then what’s on your mind, Tammy?”

Tammy inhales sharply, like something is finally making her hesitate. “You spend five years in jail ‘cause of that guy, and you come out with a brilliant plan. Then you run the job, you get revenge, and what are you left with, Deb?”

“The rest of my life?” Debbie’s tone is so sarcastic it almost cuts Lou through the door.

Tammy’s laugh is raw and just as bitter as the words Lou’s swallowing down. “Yeah, that.”

“Is this where you tell me to go out there and tell her I love her? ‘Cause, Tammy—”

“No, don’t put words in my mouth. That is not what I’m doing.”

“It sounds exactly like what you’re doing. And it’s not gonna happen. Me and Lou…” she stops, and Lou realizes she’s hanging on to her voice like an idiot, ear pressed to the door. _Me and Lou_ , she can almost hear it in her head, as she did during so many nights during these five years, eight months, twelve days, _we don’t do love._

Who’s she gonna blame now? She’s been telling Debbie that all their life. And she’s right. Was right. Is right. If she thought anything had change, could change, would change, then this has definitely proved her wrong.

“You and Lou—” Tammy pushes when Debbie doesn’t pick up where she left.

“I don’t love her. Like that.”

Lou wants her voice wavering, wants her throat closing, wants Debbie Ocean to have a fucking tell. She wants, and it’s not fair to want that, because she won’t grant it to Debbie in return.

“I’m just telling you to figure your shit out with her.” Tammy’s done playing. “‘Cause you’ve got the rest of your fucking life.”

It takes long minutes for Lou to be sure Tammy’s gone. She listens, and listens, and listens, and just when she thinks it’s safe to come out, Debbie speaks to herself: “She’s gonna walk,” she sing-songs quietly, a nervous-tick she only lets out rarely. Lou knows it’s not Tammy she’s talking about.

If she could see Debbie’s face, Lou would know. She’s sure she would. But she can’t, so she doesn’t -- she doesn’t know if she should walk. She doesn’t know if she _can_ walk.

Truth is worse than she remembered it.

**February, 2010**

“Do you trust him?” Lou asks, flinging a silver chain around her finger, then off; around, then off. She’s sitting, as she does, slouched in their kitchen chair. Debbie did see her mimic perfectly the position of a good school girl while sitting, so she knows she’s c _apable_ of that, but while herself, she’d rather not put in the effort towards respectability, and sometimes that drives Debbie nuts, just the thought of Lou’s raised eyebrow and spread legs and the hand on the back of the chair, looking at Debbie. She’s not looking at Debbie right now; she’s reading one of her magazines, food or fashion or motorcycles; Debbie didn’t pay attention today. And if Debbie wants to climb into Lou’s lap right now, it’s just because she wants the fucking silver chain to stop distracting her from putting her disguise on.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Debbie retorts, even though that’s not the best answer she could have come up with. It’s just that she doesn’t know how to explain that it doesn’t matter if she trusts him, right now, because she’s gonna lose her mind, and if he tries anything, she can fix it.

“He’s got that sort of face.”

“A man’s face?”

“Maybe.”

Debbie rolls her eyes. “You’ve worked with men before.”

Lou hums. “They didn’t have that face."

"I trusted you."

The chain stops, sudden and more distracting than its constant flying. Lou looks up, something in her eyes that Debbie doesn't want to see. "I'm not him," she says, low and rough, the kind of voice that isn't fake at all and Debbie hasn't heard for a while now, since they've started mostly fighting and fighting and fighting.

Debbie swallows, wants to say, _no, no one is you_ , but she doesn't know what's wrong with them and she doesn't want to find out. She stares for too long, she is aware, but Lou stares right back at her before asking, "Are you coming back tonight?"

"Not sure."

Lou turns back to her magazine, sends the silver chain flying once again. "Well, enjoy yourself."

Later, Claude wraps his fingers around her wrist and kisses her as his thumb runs over her pulse point, and Debbie gasps and stays the night.

She stays the next time, as well. And the time after that.

"You're leaving," Lou doesn't even ask, just states a fact she's certain in.

Debbie does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 “I’m not sure that I know how to do this with you again.”  [ [return to text](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676899/chapters/39565636#return1) ]
> 
> 2“I hate that I left.” [ [return to text](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676899/chapters/39565636#return2) ]
> 
> 3“I never regret anything, but I hate that I left.” [ [return to text](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676899/chapters/39565636#return3) ]
> 
> 4“I know I’m cheating here. I’m sorry. And I was serious when I said 'every step of the way’.” [ [return to text](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676899/chapters/39565636#return4) ]
> 
> 5 “You’re going to hate me again very soon.” [ [return to text](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676899/chapters/39565636#return5) ]
> 
> 6 “I’m not leaving this time, though. You should know that. I can’t tell you that.”  [ [return to text](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676899/chapters/39565636#return6) ]


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is....it. done. finito. thank you so much for every person who took the time to read this and for every person who left kudos and to every person who left a comment, i love you and you've continuously made my day. not gonna say a lot even though finishing this makes me want to blabber.
> 
> i'm posting chapter 4 + an epilogue together but on different chapters, because that's what felt right.
> 
> hope this ending is worth it.
> 
> and again, thank you to Netterz my wonderful wonderful beta who is a wonderful person in general, and thank you emkat97 for just like, existing as a person whom i can talk to <333

There's a very thin line when it comes to interacting with Debbie and the rest of the crew now. Of course, it's two different lines, drawn in two different shapes, by two different pencils, with two different colors. But still, she has to navigate both. Lou doesn't have much wiggle room with these self-imposed limitations, but since she hasn't made up her mind about walking yet, and even if she does, she does not intend to leave the crew hanging in the process, there isn't much of choice but to be professional. And so—lines.

If either Debbie or Tammy know she heard their conversation they don't show it. Lou supposes they just don't know. Debbie has the tendency to use what she knows to her advantage, and Tammy tends to talk things through. She avoids them both as much as she can. Watches from corners as they navigate around each other in that way that, at some point of her life, Lou was jealous of—easy, no weight upon their shoulders, nothing holding them back. Just the way _she_ and Debbie used to be before Debbie got too deep into her heart.

If the rest of the crew notices the way she isolates herself more often than not, they say nothing. Lou wonders if it's because they just don't understand, or because they are scared to touch anything that might compromise the job. Either way, she is left alone. She does what is needed of her, swallows down the bitterness that comes with hearing Debbie's voice, and sleeps alone in her bed, which still smells like Debbie. It's not surprising that she dreams of Debbie, then, when she goes to sleep wearing the T-shirt with the _Blondie_ tour dates on the back and buries her face in the pillow on the side of the bed that Debbie took over and refuses to fucking walk. Just fucking walk, right this fucking moment.

Coincidentally, Lou keeps her punching bag in the room where Nine-Ball took up residence, and coincidentally, Nine-Ball is the only person Lou has ever met who managed to stare both her and Debbie down. So, this is where she spends most of her days, and she sees the way Debbie stares after she comes out of there smelling of Nine's Kush, and there's a sort of sick satisfaction to the fact that Debbie doesn't _know_.

"I got no problem sharin', honest," Nine says in between punches, seems slightly amused by the way Lou flexes her muscles.

Lou gives her a once over, considers taking her up on the offer because it can't hurt that much and she will feel light and careless and Debbie would give her a hell of a lecture so Lou could tell her it's none of her fucking business, not now, not after that. But something shifts in Nine's eyes, and Lou ends up saying, "Call me when you get something stronger." And Nine ends up saying, "I don't think I should."

She wants to be _reckless_ and that's not what she is anymore. So she settles for flexing her muscles and pretending that she can be. Punches the bag over and over again because it grates people, because for some fucking reason these people care.

"What's up with you and yo' girl?"

"I told you, she's not my girl."

"It's fine by me if you jus' wanna keep sayin' that."

"Are all hackers so nosey?"

Lou pauses with her hands raised in a defense position, looks at Nine from the corner of her eye. She's not even looking at Lou, typing away on her computer, probably finishing up on the camera angles. There's a tilt to her head, a curl to her lips, a blunt between her fingers. "That's our damn job," she answers, light-hearted more than anything else, and Lou drops the pose, picks up her towel and wipes her face and neck.

When she speaks again it's lacking teeth and she feels like she punched all the air out of her lungs. "You got another place to stay?"

Nine-Ball looks up curiously, nothing but fascination in her voice and her eyes. "Why? You kickin' us out?"

Lou takes careful little gulps of water that give her enough time to prepare herself for what's coming next. She didn't think she would admit it to anyone like that, abrupt, before she's even done admitting it to herself. But something about the way Nine's fingers run over her billiard ball while she doesn't take her eyes off Lou, something about the way she knew Lou and Debbie all too well before they even had a chance to get familiarized with each other, just make the words slip out. "When it's done, I'm done. So yeah."

The only reaction she gets is Nine's raised eyebrow. Lou holds her gaze, refuses to give up the tough demeanor completely, but then Nine huffs and nods towards the punching bag. "Keep punchin' that bag. See where it gets you."

She's so calm it makes Lou laugh. She wipes her forehead one last time before throwing the towel back on the floor, puts the bottle of water down and does exactly as Nine told her to.

_She's gonna be fine around us tomorrow,_ Lou thinks, and then she thinks about Debbie's face if she'd made Nine make her believe that Lou relapsed, shuts her eye tight, just keeps punching.

*

The plan keeps working, of course it does, because Debbie's a goddamn good planner and she has planned this as well, hasn't she, the way Lou would find out, the way she'd be unable to just throw her hands up and let them handle it all on their own. Let Debbie handle it all on her own.

Nine-Ball got the cameras right, and Lou watches Debbie on the computer screen, a small, faraway figure that is as sure of herself as Lou is, and wonders how many hours she spent this morning putting up this act. _She's gonna walk_ , Debbie still sing-songs in her head. Lou wants to answer her so badly, but whenever she tries, her tongue is tied.

"The way you lookin' at her, that's hard," Nine's voice carries over the loudness of her thoughts.

"What?"

"You asked me what's hard. Stealin' shit, hackin', whatever the job is, that easy. The way you lookin' at her? That's hard. She gonna come by any secon' now, and she gonna be lookin' at you jus' the same. That's hard."

They see Debbie rounding up the corner in the park, and Nine shuts her laptop, throws it far too carelessly into her bag and gets up.

Lou's stuck in her place for a moment, just a moment, trying not to watch Debbie as she approaches them. "Why do you care?" she finally asks Nine-Ball, brows furrowed. She doesn't get it, she doesn't get why the hell this whole crew cares.

"Jus' want my money."

"You'll get it."

Nine shrugs. Then Debbie's close enough to hear, and Lou gets up, straightens her coat, her back, sets her jaw just right.

"Glad I listened to you," Debbie tells her with a wink at Nine. Before Lou can tell her she's always right, Nine says: "She's a good thief." And Debbie says, "Best I ever had," fingers brushing against Lou's forearm.

_Fuck you,_ she wants to tell her, but her tongue is tied.

"Let's go."

**The First Monday of May, 2018**

Dawn stretches and yawns, a faint sun greeting Lou after a night of light sleep, the cold, which has started to fade, still clawing at the early hours of the day. Lou shivers and rolls over in her bed, far too ready to get up. Jobs don't get old, they get ritualistic. Nervousness turns to a familiar routine, expectations to exercises, and so the silhouette she finds at the crack of her door is not a surprise, even if she was not prepared for it. She lies, stares at it until it disappears with light steps, heels already clicking on hardwood floor, then throws the duvet off, and rises.

"Here we go," she murmurs to herself, breathes in and out rhythmically, readies her mind for the inevitable last setback before they have no way to turn back.

Before they are done, and she's done.

Debbie says, "Even solitary can be peaceful," into the intercom, and after all—the money she has gotten and the people she has found and the toys she has bought and the magnets they have fixed and everything they've all done for this to work, after the nights Debbie has spent in her bed and shivered as Lou traced the curve of her spine with her fingers, after Claude and after Claude, again—Lou knows with a certainty she's never experienced before that Deborah Ocean is lying.

**December, 2014**

Solitary is the only place where she can think.

_You're freezing,_ Lou told her, on that cold December in Vegas when they'd just met, watching Debbie shivering on their way to the airport. She still has no idea why Lou stayed that first time, not really. Still has no idea why she wanted Lou to stay that first time, not really. Fascination and excitement only go so far and fun ends, and none of these are things that make a con artist trust. She had her reasons, back then, they both did, probably, but now it seems so far away and Debbie doesn't know, not anymore.

_Am not,_ she had protested, and Lou had raised an eyebrow and beckoned her closer and wrapped her arms around her in the taxi, whispered, _you can't lie to me, honey,_ and Debbie shut her eyes and let the driver think they just got hitched.

_I can try,_ she teased, turned her head, kissed Lou. And that’s what she’s been doing ever since.

There's a map of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in her head, and a very particular jewel on her mind, and she can't put them together, not in a way that works, and she is freezing.

Solitary is the only place where she can fucking think.

She thinks, if Lou were here—

She thinks, I need an A-list star—

She thinks, if Lou says no—

She thinks, there are no cameras in public New York restrooms—

She _thinks—_

_What do you want?_ Lou asked her, leaning on an elbow, hovering over Debbie, nose pressed under her jaw and hand splayed low on her stomach.

_Jesus, Lou._

_Come on, tell me._

Hands crossed over her chest, staring at a ceiling and at the walls and at her own feet, thinking of talking just to know what the outside of her head sounds like. Debbie remembers her arched back and the way her lungs tightened to keep the air from forming words she didn't know she wanted to.

_Just make me feel good._

_You trust me?_

_I trust you._

_So can you tell me?_

"Fuck."

There are many roles to play to get along with people in prison, and many types of people to fill each one. Debbie has always been the type to scheme and lead. She knows that this is not the role to play when you plan on a parole. Not the role to play when you're an Ocean with a reputation; when your cellmate hates you for running a contraband operation more successful than hers but can't touch you because your brother might be an asshole, but he has his stupid rules about watching each other's back. It is not the role to play when you want to have your peace and quiet, and so a guard who might want too much of you is an easy way into a room where there is nothing but you and your thoughts.

She's always had her mind to keep her company, be a reliable companion, could always just withdraw herself from anything else that didn't matter and _think._ When there is nothing trying to push and pull and shake it, her mind is—

_Beautiful,_ Lou told her, watching her above blueprints with a twinkle in her eyes.

It's a double-edged sword.

She thinks—Every year, on the first Monday of May, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts its biggest ball…

_Let me feel you,_ she said, then, and her fingers clutch and dig as if Lou's shoulder is right there, trembling, and she thinks—

_I want to feel you._

_Like that?_

_Lou._

She thinks—She can't stop thinking.

She's freezing. 

**The first Monday of May, 2018**

"Good?" Debbie asks.

"Good," Lou replies.

They walk in silence, quick through the route they have memorized, Yen inside the cart that Lou pushes, and when they finally separate to play their respective parts, Debbie looks at her and smiles, faint, says, "Don't let them down," and doesn't even look behind her shoulder as Lou says, "You, too."

The last day of Debbie's trial, Lou remembers, they didn't get the chance to talk. She watched Claude Becker getting into his Audi in the parking lot and ran her fingers over her wrists where the metal must be biting into Debbie's skin. She said goodbye to her more than a year ago.

_Didn't expect to see you here,_ Danny told her.

Lou shrugged, said, _I warned her._

_You don't look like you're gloating._

Amita hands her a piece of the Toussaint and they send the truck off. Lou realizes, with far too much clarity, that her heart is racing. Lou realizes, with far too much clarity, that she is _worried_.

"She's already out of here," Amita tells her, and Lou doesn't dare meet her eyes.

**November, 2011**

"You know it's you, don't you? The reason she always wants more. Bigger. Better."

Danny shrugs. "That's who she is."

"You drive her crazy."

They walk over to Lou's bike together, cigarettes in hand, feet heavy. Lou can't stop seeing orange.

"And you warned her."

She crushes the butt with the heel of her boot, mounts her bike. "I'm not gloating because I didn't want to be right."

"What did you want, then?"

Lou ignores the question, puts her helmet on. "You better do everything she needs you to, Daniel."

"Want me to tell her something?"

"That I'm always right."

**The first Monday of May, 2018**

There's a trick she taught herself as a little child, when waiting became unbearable. It's kind of like counting sheep when you can't fall asleep, except you need to stay awake, except you need to focus, except you need to not drive yourself crazy just because not knowing what exactly is coming is the worst part of being alive.

It goes like this: one—breathe through your nose; two—name everything you see around you, from a streetlamp to a storefront to the white lines on a crosswalk; three—alphabetize the list; four—memorize the list like you memorize a plan; five—reorganize the list in different orders until you can breathe again, until you can stop waiting, until it happened, and you have nothing to do about it.

Debbie is reorganizing the whole of Manhattan by the time Lou steps into her view—shuffling streets and monuments and restaurants like she can draw a whole new map of the first place where Lou touched her to the last and reshape Manhattan just for her. Let her know that's the only order of things that Debbie's interested in. The breath she lets out is heavy like all the words she thinks of saying when Lou will be there, near her— _I'm sorry_ and _You're here_ and _I didn't have the guts to face it_. Because she didn't walk, because she stayed, because she's stunning, and Debbie knows there's just a little bit more of a way to go before they're truly done, before _she's_ truly done. But right now she has to let herself feel it: the smile that's creeping up on her, and Lou's name on the tip of her tongue, and Lou's hand on the small of her back as they walk like a couple of people who have nowhere else they'd rather be.

The loft is theirs for the night.

Lou helps her get the pins out of her hair, lips to Debbie's neck, and Debbie says, "You stayed," tilts her head to the side and closes her eyes and Lou follows with her mouth.

"I stayed."

They don't say much more than that until all the jewels are safe and sound and off their bodies, until Debbie strips Lou down and tells her that she's stunning with words and with her fingertips and with her tongue, until they are bare-footed and comfortable on the couch. Lou threads her fingers into the mess of Debbie's hair, doesn't pull but puts a pleasant pressure on her scalp, and Debbie has her leg hooked over Lou's waist, thinks she's never felt anything as strongly before.

"You stayed," she says again, and Lou leans in to kiss her.

"I stayed."

Her breath is warm and sweet against her lips and Debbie sighs, bites gently at Lou's bottom lip before she tries to speak but Lou cuts her off with an "I want you," and Debbie says, "You have me," and Lou—

Lou pulls back and runs her nose along Debbie's cheek. "Not like that."

Debbie tilts her head, plants a kiss to the juncture of Lou's shoulder, fights the way her lungs tighten against the words she wants to say. "I'm not leaving again," she whispers, because that's all the air she could get.

Lou kisses the corner of her mouth, sighs.

Debbie fights harder.

"I couldn't tell you," she says, breathes in, "I couldn't tell you because I didn't have the guts to face how much I regret that I left."

There's a hand around her back now, fingers clutching at her shirt, and Lou's mouth finds hers and makes her shiver. "You did it, didn't you? Whatever you planned on doing."

"I had to. I had to have this."

"Can you tell me?"

"After it works."

"Deb—"

"Please."

Lou rests her forehead against her shoulder, fingers in her hair traveling down to her nape. Debbie feels her heart beating, feels the warmth of Lou's body, thinks she's never felt anything as strongly before.

"Tell me something else, then," Lou asks, and Debbie fights and fights and fights.

Breathes Lou in and fights.

"I love you," she says, against every fiber of her being, and she can't breathe until Lou puts her hand over her heart and draws back far enough to look into her eyes and asks—

"Like that?"

"Jesus Lou," falls off her lips. She leans in with two palms on Lou's cheeks, eyes wet and tightly shut, lies and truths balancing themselves on her tongue as they kiss more than a decade of deceit away, as Debbie stops trying. "Yes. Like that."

It's a double-edged sword, Debbie thinks, but there isn't much left to hear about that when Lou says, "I've never told you, jailbird."

There isn't much left to say about that when Lou says, "You're the love of my life."

There isn't much left to do, now, anyway, not many steps to go through, not many threads to tie-off, so Debbie pulls Lou down over her, sighs.

There isn't much more that she wants.


	5. Chapter 5

**Epilogue**

They come to a full stop at a fair distance from the mausoleum. A cemetery is a grim place even at summer, but Lou can't say the sun isn't trying. She slides down to plant her feet on the ground alongside Debbie, takes the helmet from her and watches as she hangs her jacket off her arm and takes the shaker out from the box.

"You're sure you don't want me to wait?" she asks one last time, leaning back against her bike and accommodating Debbie as she comes to stand between her legs. Brings her hands up to play with the loose ends of Debbie's bowtie.

Debbie smiles at her, a small and beautiful thing, nods. "Yes. Go." She leans down for a dry kiss.

Lou shuts her eyes and inhales. The scent of the coastline is already on her mind, but she can let Debbie's linger for a little while longer. "I'll see you, then."

"You'll see me, then."

Lou presses up into another peck, and another, until Debbie wraps a hand around her neck and deepens the kiss, makes Lou miss her already, gives Lou something for the road, whispers, "wherever you'd like," and—

"Whenever you'd like," Lou whispers back.

This isn't a goodbye. They aren't going to have another goodbye. With that, she drives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW IT'S ACTUALLY DONE

**Author's Note:**

> i am on [tumblr!](https://straperine.tumblr.com) as well if you want.


End file.
